It's a complicated problem. Part of it is that Amtrak is so broken that people wonder if it's even fixable.

I recently went to a concert in another city for my birthday. I looked into what Amtrak options there were, because I get panic attacks in traffic, and they only offer overnight service, with a middle of the night swap from bus to train. It also would have cost $250 round trip for two tickets vs <$100 in gas to drive, and taken 12 hours vs the 7 to drive.

So instead of taking the extra time off work, we wound up driving, and I had multiple panic attacks instead.

Another part of the problem is that the US likes to talk about whether or not people deserve transit options. Like, my local bus only comes by four times a day between 6am and 6pm, but because I live in a low-income area, I apparently don't even deserve a bench at the bus stop.