New York City's buses may be fine, but its subway system, while not useless, is primitive, dirty, inconvenient and unreliable.  Between JFK Airport and the subways, a visitor to that city might think they just arrived in a developing country.  Other countries would be ashamed to have such a decrepit public transport system.

As Tom Friedman recently wrote,

If all Americans could compare Berlin's luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.

Tells you instantly what the city thinks about transportation support for the masses -- and the USA as well (assuming NYC has one of the best mass transit systems in the country, though maybe some other cities have already surpassed it.)

A language is a dialect with an army and navy.

Even with gas tax, you would be far from EU levels even a few years ago, and the working poor have cars here too.

The poor do, but car commuting isn't quite as essential here. It's possible to survive without a car in bigger cities without too much effort.

The US is mostly mall sprawl, so gas isn't discretionary spending.