I'm not disagreeing with you but there tons of cities with 250k to 10 million people with great transportation options. Amsterdam : 1m Antwerp :

I'm not disagreeing with you but there tons of cities with 250k to 10 million people with great transportation options. Amsterdam : 1m Antwerp : 0.6m Brussels : 1.2m Barcelona : 1.7m Copenhagen : 0.7m That said, places like the SF Bay Area and Southern California, are unlikely to get a large enough train system to be an alternative to cars anytime in the next 50-100 years. Adding 1-2 lines every 10 years is not enough. You need a extensive system. It needs fast express lines so that people making trips from one side to the other can do so in a reasonable amount of time. AFAIK the LA system they are sssslllooowwwlllyyy rebuilding, has only slow every-stop lines. It's, on average, door to door, going to be over 3hrs from the west side of LA to the east side of LA. Even if you live directly next to the station and need to go so some place next to the station on other end it will be 2hrs.