People still commute by car in Europe because it's often much faster than public transport, but generally Europeans were more successful in preventing sprawl wastelands where you can't survive without a car.

In the US there are many places where the next supermarket is twenty minutes by car away and literally impossible to reach on a bike without getting run over. In contrast, even in the smallest town I've lived in, with just 20k residents, there where three supermarkets and two specialty stores in walking distance.