Public transport requires density to be cost effective. You can't have a "great transit system" everywhere in a large country. Not here in small and dense England, and not in Germany or Japan either from what I've seen.
The vast majority of land in almost all countries is rural where there isn't enough density. However most people do not live in those areas.
The whole point of this thread since my comment has been "will people do it" not "is it possible". We've had decades of notice and yet the very Democratic suburbs near me still have done nothing but put in a handful of bike paths and patted themselves on the back.
Of course it is possible to do things differently, but very many choose not to do so. This is all in justification of my original point- that "corporate greed" in the parent post is a bogeymen when we can see the same decision process is made by many kinds of people.
The Republicans are at least honest about not caring about transit...