Before we invested Billions of dollars in the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, one could have made a similar argument about cars.
I think the difference though was that we had a federal road system in place before the Eisenhower Act built during (I think) the Hoover Administration (those are the US routes like 1 on the east coast and 101 on the west) that was becoming highly congested. Eisenhower saw the autobahns in Germany during WW2 and thought they'd do good in the US.
It had. Remember what inspired Eisenhower was two things: 1 taking a month to get from one side of the country to the other in WWI and thinking that was pretty stupid; and 2 seeing the Autobahn Hitler had put in place. The Autobahn gave him the answer, and it still is the answer. I can drive from one side of the country to the other in a week and stop where ever I want whenever I want and for as long as I want. Trains aren't going to beat that.
One of the basic problems any mass transit system runs into is America pride. We like to be in charge. With cars we are, in trains or any other mass transport we aren't. While you can complain loudly, and often correctly, about the problems of the car as a system of movement until you've got something that allows me to leave my house whenever I want, get to work straight from home without having to wait for the next scheduled whatever, work as long as I want, run a few errands on the way home without having to wait for my transport and without having to carry my purchases from the last store into this store, then you've got nothing that will beat the car.
Control of our own destiny, that's what the car gives and no mode of mass transit currently known CAN give. And until you've got something that can match the convenience you're just wasting effort because the masses will never adopt it.