> Unfortunately, the U.S. has gone all-in on car based infrastructure and that's a difficult thing to reverse.

The USA has a fantastic organizational structure that allows changes like this to be experimented with in pockets of the country without a top down approach. If an approach can't be done at the city or State level, then it's not likely to get approved for spending at the Federal level as you add in more people who will never directly benefit from said system.

In the USA, the city of New York is seen as having the most extensive mass transit system, in particular the subway system. Problem is that it has massive budgetary shortfalls and doubles as a de facto homeless shelter. People don't take the NYC subway because they want to, they take it because they have no other choice.

If people want public transport to be a success in the USA, pick a city (any city!) and show that it can be done in a fiscally sustainable way with an end product that people actually want to use. Not just forced to use.