The influence of the car industry in actively undermining alternatives through favorable regulation, direct handouts and access to the administrations by indirect bribes and revolving door delayed favors should not be underestimated.

Some counties in Europe have seen their former very nice state run public transport systems seen completely deteriorated over the past decades once sold out to the so-called 'efficient' private sector. I'm putting in 'so-called' as in practice they still receive close to as much in subsidies as the state-run enterprises they replaced, but now only serve cherry picked parts, most often with lower quality, and divest the required upkeep investments in infrastructure into separate businesses that are completely reliant on public funding.

There is a real myth about the effectiveness of private enterprise vs public enterprise.

Large private companies are not more efficient than a comparably sized public endeavor. Small companies can be, but that is systemically only true if you ignore the waste of 99% of the 'competitors' that are perpetually failing.