memes

More funding doesn't necessarily work in this situation. There's a big stigma about public transportation in the US where if you take it you're seen as unsuccessful and poor. It's also perceived as something like government intrusion whenever infrastructure is built to support it. Minorities would resist any kind of building of rail along their property because they were previously screwed over when several black and poor neighborhoods were bulldozed for the sake of placing freeways. Rich people simply lobby the government to stop construction or hold back on selling their property because they want to gouge them for all they're worth and sap the project's funds.

The solution of course would be a bigger willingness for the government to use eminent domain laws to force these projects through but because of the short term nature of their precarious elected positions, officials would rarely do that lest they get voted out in the next election cycle and the project simply stalls out. There's been some success with private companies building rail, like Brightline, because building public infrastructure in a capitalist way seems to be accepted more by the public thanks to our conditioning of loving the free market.