> I've commuted both on trains and in cars, and when comparing transportation methods near the saturation point, cars win when it comes to personal comfort.
Note that if you're at the saturation point of both modes, you're moving a lot more people with (light/heavy) rail:
Also worth considering that while it may be personally comfortable for you in on saturated rail, you're still moving towards your destination, whereas at car saturation you may be physically comfortable, but you are not making progress towards your goal of actually achieving your goal of getting to your destination while your speed is zero.
That is like saying that with pig factory farming (aka intensive pig farming) you can produce far more meat per square foot than with organic pig farming and therefore it must be better.
Or, from another perspective, you have a budget of $/€ y for transportation, what mode of transportation will allow you to move the most people for that money? Unless you believe in MMT, government budgets are a finite resource, so how do we get the most bang for our buck?
Certainly you need some roads as vehicles such as trucks (UK: lorries) are very handy for society in running the economy. I myself own a car, a motorcycle, a bicycle, and have a transit pass (though I can use debit/credit tap-to-pay) and use each mode when appropriate. But the overemphasis on automobiles—specifically for private transportation—is suffocating the availability for other options.
To go back to your analogy: if you have a starving population, then factory farming is better because you can provide more calories to more people (and probably at lower cost). In that case organic is worse because you may be sacrificing people's well-being by not having enough capacity. Once you solve your first problem (enough calories/capacity), then you have the luxury of other considerations.
Obviously it is better. The better alternative to intensive animal husbandry is not eating meat (or other animal products, but in a lesser way) than greenwashing via "organic" designation.
Note that if you're at the saturation point of both modes, you're moving a lot more people with (light/heavy) rail:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Passenger_Capacity_of_dif...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity
Also worth considering that while it may be personally comfortable for you in on saturated rail, you're still moving towards your destination, whereas at car saturation you may be physically comfortable, but you are not making progress towards your goal of actually achieving your goal of getting to your destination while your speed is zero.