the u. s. doesn’t have enough housing density to support passenger rail that people actually want to use

you could build the rail first and hope the dense housing comes later, but that would saddle cities with an expensive rail network no one uses

even in the bay area we have decent rail solutions given the size of the area, and most people prefer to drive. because they live far enough from the station that driving to the station and then training, and the destination stations are far from the destinations

without all this investing in roads and highways will have the biggest direct impact to most americans