Wow! This turned out to be a really great thread! Some good viewpoints, and some things that made me rethink a couple of things.

Given the government subsidies of roads and highways, one could make a case that a form of "affirmative action" is required for mass transit. I wish it weren't so, but based on the government throwing a wrench into the market a long time ago, maybe we have no choice any more.

The following is, of course, speculation. Just for fun:

Imagine a nation where there are no zoning restrictions, no licensing restrictions on entering the tranport market, and transportation gets paid for by the customers. Where the government stays out of it.

As I've already mentioned, if auto drivers had to pay for roads more directly, alternatives to the car would start looking a lot better. There would be a lot more passenger trains. There would be more trolleys. Maybe there wouldn't be an interstate highway system, and more goods would be going on railroads than trucks from city to city.

Cities would look a bit different without zoning. A leftist would tell you that someone would immediately build a glue factory in the middle of a housing project, but in point of fact, functions tend to end up where they are the most reasonable, for obvious economic reasons. Houston has gone for decades without major zoning laws, and has done just fine thanks. People aren't as stupid as liberals think they are.

A lot more people would live a lot closer to where they work, and businesses would be spread out and integrated with housing a lot more than they are.

There would be one HELL of a lot more taxis and jitneys. City governments typically maintain an iron control over the number of taxis in a city, and a little research would show that if allowed, many more taxis would enthusiastically join the crowd. Bet they'd be cheaper too.

Maybe other solutions would have been found too.

Personally, though, I think people LIKE driving their own cars, and will put up with a lot to be able to. For someone who regularly commutes to the same place every day, mass transit might work pretty well. For someone who has to run five errands in an afternoon, your own car is the difference between a two-hour and a six-hour trip, even assuming mass transit goes everywhere you want to.