Comment by tourmalinetaco

What I said is obviously correct, especially historically, and you pointed out exactly why: medium travel, which is far more prevalent than simply modern suburbia. Have you even been outside a city? Take a quick glance at history and you will see just how crucial private transport for medium-long distance is in America. Horses and buggies have been a mainstay before the car. Rail is simply too inflexible to support medium travel in sparsely populated areas. And medium travel is what I would classify most rural Americans are from their nearest grocer. Long distance via train, that makes sense. A centralized rail system, such as subway, in a city also makes sense to cover medium distances. However, we already have the infrastructure to handle medium distances without new expensive rails, that being highways. The cost to fit rails across the entire US would be enormous, and that’s ignoring the long term costs such as staffing and maintenance.

In my small town, we have roughly 125 people. We are, roughly, 35 minutes away from the nearest grocery store, or about 40 miles. Too long to walk or bike in a reasonable time. You could use a motorized bike but the amount of food for a family would be unwieldy. The only viable solution is to drive via car, because you need the trunk space. And both options to get there require roads. Now, let’s suppose we magically replaced highways for rails. What happens is simple: either the government is bleeding immense amounts of money orchestrating train rides to places where no one is regularly using it, or certain less populated areas are underserved.