Because in my neck of the woods the trains are not great. They take about 10% longer than if you were to just drive their same route, and you’ll add another 25% by getting to the train station and from the station to where you’re going. And the schedule is limited, so you’ll lose a bunch of time if it isn’t happening to leave when you’re planning to. Getting back from college would take a full travel day by train vs about 5 hours drive.

So most people just have a car for every person so they don’t need to do the pick up runs you mentioned. But of course, that makes the car induced problems worse for everyone for a better individual experience.

Public transportation needs a whole lot more investment before it’ll be better in most ways for most people.