Yes, this is a bit of a non-sequitur, but electric cars continue to feel like an incremental improvement at best; as someone else mentioned - we're exchanging where the carbon production happens unless we dramatically reduce our fossil fuel usage for power generation. And that doesn't solve the accessibility and affordability problems of car-based transit.
The article and the source it's based on are both assuming/advocating a faster move away from fossil fuel electricity generation.
But even if that wasn't true, EVs would still reduce carbon output due to the greater efficiency.
Also, we'll have to tear down the majority of the houses in the US, and build new ones in an arrangement that allows for bus lines to have sufficient passenger density to be less polluting than cars.
EVs are better than ICE cars for the environment and public health in every way possible. Also, there's an incremental path forward that we can take right now.
I wish there was better public transit in the US. Heck; I wish California would just mandate minimum density for new development near transit stations, and also auto-approve any compliant permit applications for housing in those areas (bypassing local zoning reviews, etc, etc.)
Sadly, that won't happen while the current generation of politicians is around.
Around here, they're mostly focusing on blocking construction, narrowing roads and cutting transit options. I think they're doing it to further prop up housing costs in wealthy neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, in Atlanta, private school children ride our trains every day, often with no adults, to Woodward academy. Public school children do too, but they're not wearing identifying jackets.
Or Japan, or much of Europe (especially, Spain, Germany, Amsterdam, Austria) where students rides busses, trams, and trains every day.
Most of these locations are also known better for physically disabled or elderly.
No matter how well developed public transit may or may not become across the nation, we're still going to need private transit.
We have buses. Why couldn't people just use the buses? Because they're filled with trash and crime. So instead of just enforcing the law and imprisoning criminals, the county was courting spending hundreds of millions for a tram system. And the non-enforcement would have turned the trams into the same state the buses were in within a few years.
Just insanity.
Do both. Public transit over vehicle electrification is a false economy; in that competition the status quo will win.
It's also that. (Edited to be clearer.) In this case, the false economy [1] is in progress towards decarbonization. You can do a lot of busywork towards expanding public transit, which feels good in the short term, but it's easier to kill and more politically volatile. In the same time, you could have banked saved emissions through EVs.