I've spent vast amounts of time commuting on public transport and by car.
You can't pay me to ever get on a bus again.
And not just in the US/Canada either. Even in the dense cities of Europe, public transportation << car transport. No bus can ever beat the comfort and convenience of putting a large amount of shopping / luggage in the back, getting in your private bubble, and going directly to your destination.
Then there's the people you meet on public transport. 99 / 100 of them are just people who want to go from A to B. But then there are the trouble-makers and weirdos. Do you really want to be stuck on a bus or train, straining under shopping bags or holiday luggage, with some unpredictable idiot eyeing you?
Some people, like newyorker.com, have a platonic ideal of public transport where we are all happily whisked from A to B on hyper-efficient and advanced vehicles, perhaps humming kumbaya to ourselves. But the reality is that it will always be inconvenient and slow - at best - and dangerous and super unpleasant in reality.
The one instance where public transport works well is when you want to travel 5-10 blocks, there's a lot of traffic, and you are carrying nothing, and there just so happens to be a subway going the right way.
The real way forward is to have electric cars, nuclear power plants, remote work, and maybe this new Musk tunnel thing.
I don't agree with you that public transport sucks. But it does suck in some situations.
But when I need to buy some furniture or transport luggage? I'm privileged enough to be able to ask parents and siblings to borrow theirs.
And just to use your own phrasing: Nothing beats getting on the bus in the morning, zooming past the traffic in the dedicated bus lane, reading a book, and having to walk a shorter distance than the people who drive to work have to walk from the parking lot.
But I understand that I'm lucky. I had the opportunity to buy an apartment so that I have a great bus route to work. I have the opportunity to borrow a car when I need one. The weather is warm enough most of the year that I can bike everywhere I want to go. I live five minutes walking distance from a grocery store.
And although electric cars are great; (If I did buy a car I'd probably buy something like the Renault Twizy) they are still cars. They still get stuck in traffic, they still need parking lots. They tear more on the road system due to the increased weight of the battery. The real way forward is to put people in a positition where they don't need a car for most errands. Walkable cities, bike infrastructure.