We 100% need more trains. But in rural America, we need cars to do anything.

How many trains run from my garage to the convenience store at anytime I want? Or from my garage to work at anytime between 8 and 9 am and then home at whatever time I want to leave? What about the trains that run to my mother's house or my sister's house in different cities? What about the one that goes to the snowboarding resort I like it in the boonies, or for that matter, the one in the middle of the mountains? I will never live in an apartment with other people for many different reasons, and it gets both miserably hot and dangerously cold where I live. There are plenty of other things to fix before going after vehicles, especially electric vehicles. Making me operate on some strict schedule with trains and buses it other public transportation takes away my freedom to do what I want, and I will fight tooth and nail to make sure that's not taken from me, especially when both can coexist.

Trains are electric. They use diesel generators to power the wheels.

Running errands on public transport is an absolute nightmare. Imagine having appointments, hauling bags of groceries and maybe even having a child or pet on a leash, all while trying to catch busses and trains. Public transport is great to get a lot of people to a common place, but that's about it. Its not exactly cheap either. Where I live, a single one direction train ticket costs roughly as much as 2 liters (~½ Gallon) of gas. 2 liters can get me in and out of the downtown area about 3-5 times, depending on traffic. Or once with an hour of parking. If an electric vehicle would fall out of the sky into my lap and the only thing I had to care about is fuel (electricity) I'd definetly would save money and time compared to public transport. Public transport is absolutely necessary, but not the solution for everything.

It’s not remotely easier. Trains carriages are easy to build, but the infrastructure is not. You have to move and extend roads, demolish buildings, lay the rails, build bridges, if you go underground there will be lots of digging and engineering work to protect nearby buildings, and don’t forget about maintenance. It is only profitable when the population is high enough and people have the need to travel to set places en mass. Otherwise it is just fantasy. If you live your whole live around any city Center, I can understand that you are not going to drive . But plenty of people lived in a tiny town of population under 10000people .

Because trains are massively inconvenient to anyone that isn't living in AND traveling to the most dense of urban areas.

Yeah, but no train takes me from my front door to my job/the movies/my vacation place. And my car works even if the state decides to shut down the trains/buses.

Why is it that trains are always proposed as the alternative to cars? I, for one, really want PRT to succeed. It seems to be the best middle ground between efficiency and convinience.

I don't want to be stuck on and overpacked train or bus, dependant on train or bus schedules and like the freedom to go where I want.

Maybe cry about cruise ships and industrial shipping that spews out the equivalent of millions of cars?

Because I like driving. It's really not that hard to figure out why the hive effort over EVs.

Because as much as trains and buses are great for everyday commuter movement (and having amenities within walking distance is key as well), there's two issues:

• Changing the infrastructure and zoning of an existing city is much easier said than done. Ripping up concrete, tearing down existing business and homes to increase densification, that's a huge undertaking.
• Trains never replaced the horse drawn carriage. You can never fully eliminate the need for cars because sometimes you need to move something big like a couch. Even if there's less cars on the road, it'll never be 0, as this also includes things like ambulances, and fire trucks that can't rely on schedules.

Trains are great to connect cities. But a train trip for me will tipically take me will typically take 3 times longer than it would with a car. Last time I had to take the train/bus it took me 6 hours and had to change between 3 busses and 1 train. I could have done the whole trup in 2 hours, no changes and actually same price as I spent on fuel for my car.

And this is in Scandinavia where things run pretty smoothly!

I agree that within cities public transportation is great. But there are people who need cars no matter how many trains you set up or electrify. For us, EV is a good option (when they become more affordable)