Public transit is not a failure in the US, it&#x27;s just very uneven and it&#x27;s a big country. Moreover, the US especially suffers from the &quot;lost decades&quot; of urban decay through the mid 20th century. There was a sweet spot for initial public transit infrastructure investment around the turn of the 20th century and a lot of cities in the US missed it, with a much bigger hill to climb today.