I can't help but feel that many people who now work remote and therefore don't need to commute suddenly are all for moving to mass transportation...that other people will use to get to work.
I'd imagine the spike in car prices over the past couple of years contributes as well. A car is an expensive investment that eats a huge part of your income just so you can participate in society, and I'm sure plenty of people feel the pain of this.
The solve for is one or more of these:
1. Make cars cheaper, but various market and regulatory forces seem to be conspiring against that
2. Make cities cheaper so you can move to good transit, but housing isn't in great supply there
3. Make public transit better and broader so more people can use it, but this faces opposition from people in the suburbs and exurbs who have car-centric assumptions baked into their lifestyle
1 is a multilayered problem with a lot of entrenched interests, so it's hard to solve. 2 and 3 are persuasion issues first and foremost, and the persuasion battle can be a lot more localized. So it doesn't surprise me that people are fighting those battles.
EDIT: Napkin math plus some searching said it's about $9,000 a year to own and operate a car on average. $750/month to participate in society. That's 8 annual fares for Pittsburgh's public transit, by way of comparison.
If you can get a beater for $1k and some insurance, you're basically down to gas (when the beater dies, you get another one or fix it).
And buying cars can be a stressful process, it's not like you can just walk down the street and pick up another $1k beater whenever you want. Car buying often involves arranging rides and childcare for car shopping, and being forced to settle with whatever's out there when you need it.
Yes, you can undercut $9k if you find a cheap car and some luck, or if you know how to work on it yourself, or if you live in an area where salt doesn't destroy your car, if you don't have kids so you can go subcompact, etc. But in my experience, when you buy a cheaper, more high-mileage car, you're not saving a ton vs buying a similarly equipped lower-mileage car. It's more a matter of when you're spending the money.
what is this? around here if the rust can accelerate to 88 mph it's fully considered fine and nobody cares
and I agree the spend is probably worth it (or I wouldn't be waiting for Toyota to start making the damn Sienna again) but the reality is millions of poor people drive clunkers and make it work somehow.