Those places are comfortable with subpar transit conditions. There's nothing actually individually desirable about taking the train compared to having a private car take you directly between points A and B, people just seem to shy away from admitting that in favor of pro-social signaling in support of public transit.
I guess you've never ridden on the Shinkansen or anywhere in Switzerland. I'd much rather take those trains than do the equivalent drives, especially if I'm the one behind the wheel.
Ah yeah, the subpar conditions of ... not being dependent on the car for 100% of your life. The subpar conditions of ... not having to spend hours driving on the highway. The subpar conditions of ... having a choice.
I wonder if there are psychological studies on why Americans en masse cannot even perceive the idea of there being other transportation options than cars and (to a lesser extent) planes. Even though in the rare cases when someone manages to provide a well-planned alternative Americans do use it, see Northeast Corridor (2200 trains a day, 15 million passengers a year, 14% of intercity traffic, replacing most air travel between some of the cities).
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Note: it's both funny and sad reading about the state of anything in the US that keeps pretending it's not a third-world country.
For example, Empire Corridor, passenger rail corridor in New York State running between Penn Station in New York and Niagara Falls: "In the 1890s, the Empire State Express between New York City and Buffalo was about 1 hour faster than Amtrak's service in 2013." (Wikipedia)