>From that link:
"For most people, public transportation and carpooling remain far outside the fast track. While six in 10 Americans have public transit available, just 10 percent use it regularly, and just 4 percent of workers use it for their daily commute. (Ninety-three percent call driving more convenient.)"
My comment is: and the 93% are mostly right. Places with decent public transit like NY city are rare in the U.S.
"Journeys-to-work using public transportation continued to take twice as long as private transportation, though there is only a slight difference in travel distance."
http://www-cta.ornl.gov/cta/data/tedb22/Full_Doc_TEDB22.pdf U.S. Department of Energy's Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 22 -2002 ORNL-6967 (EDITION 22 OF ORNL-5198) Page 11-15
Also we we have a vicious feedback cycle which has now continued for generations. Once the original highly efficient and convenient trolley lines in the U.S. were quite deliberately destroyed and replaced by bus lines, one of the big advantages of living in or near a city was destroyed, and the process of emigration suburbs accelerated; low density suburbs are in turn more difficult to build efficient transit for. And as other factors (including racism as a major contributor) helped drain U.S. cities into the suburbs auto dependence grew.
Should the political will to change ever develop there is a technological solution to providing decent public transit outside of cities. Ultralight rail (sometimes also known as personal rapid transit or people movers) are forms of public transit suitable for moderate density populations (such as most suburbs and "edge cities" are.)
The particular version I favor is:
simply because it has been more extensively tested than any other current generation PRT. It also implements the radical concept in a very conservative way, relying entirely on commercially available off-the-shelf parts - minimizing unwelcome surprises.
The main savings is not in the cars - though they are much cheaper per seat than conventional light rail but in the track and the stations. That is what makes them suitable for suburbs; a bunch of scattered low cost stations, connected by inexpensive track. Though still not useful in true rural settings, these can compete with the cost of buses in anything denser. Because this type of transit is automated , the routes calculated on the fly as travelers buy tickets they can rival automobiles for convenience - including (of course) 24 hour availability.