The US was built on railroads, we just ripped up and paved over most of our passenger service in favor of cars. A lot of highways going through cities use the land the old main rail line used. Basically every city over a few 10s of thousands of people had some kind of light rail service. And then we decided that every public service had to also be independently profitable. So instead of pooling transportation costs across a population we each have to buy and operate personal vehicles for everything, not just leisure or convenience.
Lots of non-stop wars in Europe after WWII?
The US was built on railroads, we just ripped up and paved over most of our passenger service in favor of cars. A lot of highways going through cities use the land the old main rail line used. Basically every city over a few 10s of thousands of people had some kind of light rail service. And then we decided that every public service had to also be independently profitable. So instead of pooling transportation costs across a population we each have to buy and operate personal vehicles for everything, not just leisure or convenience.