Yes, my local transit system has 15 minute intervals at best, most routes are 30 or 60 minutes. And if you need to transfer routes, that's normally even more waiting. That really limits its attractiveness and so with a few exceptions it's mostly used by people who can't afford a car and are physically unable to bike.
I've often said that if I ran it I would concentrate resources on more frequent service on the highest ridership routes and cut the low ridership routes entirely. But for a variety of reasons that probably isn't possible, e.g. they are getting funding contingent on serving a wider area, etc.
A transit system should ideally be attractive to people who can afford to drive, but choose not to out of convenience. That's a pretty high bar in most areas.
Most Americans can not afford to buy a new car cash.
Only Chicago , and maybe Pittsburgh allows the average(income ) person to live car free and have a decent apartment.
You have folks in LA who pay upwards of 800$ a month in car payments on a 70k yr salary.
Most people are not buying a new car. The typical new car is bought, or more often leased, by someone who keeps it for three years. However, the average car on the road is 12 years old, which means there are a lot of cars that are being driven by someone who didn't buy them new.
Used cars are still expensive. I remember looking a Toyotas and a used Corolla was about 2000$ less than new.
I'd argue that individual car ownership is generally not affordable for most people. You can easily spend over 25% of your income just on transportation.
It's almost a structural problem. America isn't built for public transportation
How used? 2010 Corolla is about $10k, while 2024 will be $20-30k.
America is plenty dense for transit, but you need to build it first and that is expensive.
It was basically a year old, but with financing incentives a new car was the same price.
A 15 year old car will have 15 years of issues. I might be willing to risk it at 3 to 5k. 10k is a lot to gamble.
There are used cars available for any price you can afford to pay.
this is a function of population density, it is impossible to have a frequent and reliable public transit in a low density suburban sprawl.