As a European living in the states. Trains and buses are not a substitute for a car, not even in Europe.

In general, no, but generalizing can miss important local markets. I live in London and trains and busses do me fine. I honestly can't remember the last time I got into a car here; certainly years rather than months.

Big-city issues like parking and congestion charging can tip the scales quite a bit, with much better public transport than the rest of the country to compensate.

Trains also do not have to completely supplant cars to make a difference. If people take the train to work and use their cars to run errands around town it's still an improvement over driving everywhere.

How many Americans drive to and from an office in a city center at the same predictable hours every single day? We're certainly underutilizing trains.

Even shared bus services can made into something desirable with the right marketing and investment. The large tech companies provide luxuary coach services with WiFi to their workers and the people riding them are seemingly very happy with the services.

I mean, let's be honest here: a lot of people don't want to ride the bus because they associate it with poor people and don't want to share a vehicle with them. There's a lot of legacies of America's social problems getting tangled up with this question.

That's only helpful if they mostly share the same route; if it's a star topology, trains won't help.

That's why usually there are multiple lines that converge on a central station.

+ circle lines that connect the spokes.

I lived in Europe for a long time too. Trains are not a complete solution but they do solve a lot of the problems and are underused in the US.

Long distance train rides are incredibly expensive in the US.

I mean even moderate-distance train rides aren't cheap. Look at the price of a single ticket from the outer zones of the commuter rail systems into the city

Trains and buses don't run on demand from point to point.

They do a pretty good job of getting you very close in London and NYC. Longer distance trains get you between cities much faster than in a car. They don't solve everything but they are definitely underutilized as a solution in the US.

We could put effort into making them better but it's not as sexy.

Metro service is the key. When frequencies get high enough the timetable exists only for the benefit of the operations personnel, customers don't care about it because their experience is like with an elevator. You don't ask for a timetable for the elevator, you just go to the place where elevators arrive, and wait, and very shortly there will be an elevator.

Very high densities are both the problem and the solution. They're the problem because under very high density private car ownership is infeasible, and the solution because public transport becomes fast and affordable. If you let it.

Exactly. A lot of the issues with public transportation are because we underfund the systems and they end up seeming worse than they could be. The complaints that users have are not with the concept of trains or busses but with the failures, which can be minimized with adequate investment.

Frankly I think commuter rail for suburban riders is great and I think there should be more of it too. Who the hell likes driving to work during rush hour?

Trains and buses don't solve the last mile problem

Cars displaced those for a reason. Especially busses.

I have commuted to work by car and by train and I'd much rather do the latter. If it were so self-evident that mass transit were worse you'd expect to see people everywhere drive just as much as Americans