The size "excuse" is often brought up, I don't think that's valid though, e.g. Sweden with a significantly lower density has much better public transport. Or if we talk absolute size I think even Russia has a better rail transport system than the US for example. Like usual I think it can largely be attributed politics and to the strength of the car lobby in the US (as well as a weird desire to "stick it to poor people"), which caused a complete focus on individual travel.
There’s a happy medium somewhere though and the US doesn’t meet it at all. I can’t even take a bus from my neighborhood in a California city to the grocery store in a timely manner and it’s often cancelled
Oh, I know - I live in Oakland. I think even here the population density is lower than in European cities. (It's definitely lower than in Asian mega-cities.)
But yes, I do wish California did better. People are used to bad transit, and have never visited Tokyo or even NYC, so expectations are low.
The EU is only about half the land area of the USA; Germany is roughly equivalent of the fourth largest US state, Montana, and only CA, TX, and AK are bigger.
You said the USA was big. Now you're saying population is the important thing. Combined that's population density, so does Maryland have this? Connecticut? etc.
On the density front, NYC is famously high density, and yet so far as I can tell a monthly pass for just there is double the raised price this ticket will be next year: https://new.mta.info/document/118601
