Cheap gas … saw it for $1.98 a gallon two weeks ago.. Even folks with beaters can afford that.

My Dad’s gittin up there.. So has some wonderful stories about how ‘our hometown’ of Portland OR once had trolley’s & tracks to most all outlying towns. As a kid, he could have cheaply & safely gotten to where no scheduled service of anything goes now. Progress ~ (great question)

Not in the British part of Europe, we don't - trains are slow, inconvenient, dirty, over-crowded and very expensive (a friend of mine travelled by train from London to Marseilles last year. London to Dover, where the train enters the Channel Tunnel, is 82 miles but cost more and took longer than Calais to Marseilles, which is 664 miles).

As for buses... well, if you wait long enough one might show up eventually. Unless it's one of the numerous services that have been cut due to not turning enough of a profit.

that's not strictly true and the USA is huge compared to European countries

Why do we choose to drive cars rather than accept public transportation in the USA. The reason I drive are the buses are not convenient, do not go where i want to go or do not have a schedule that allows me to travel in a timely manner. The same goes for the trains.Granted some cities have great transportation but for the most part it is non existent in most of the USA.