It's not really true in America, either. The (small) European cities I've lived in have far better transit than even major US cities, but any American city with a "greater metro area" population in the millions will have enough public transit that you can survive without a car and without living in an extremely costly area.
It requires some walking and biking, and some employment options do disappear. But most of those employment options are recoverable because the salaries (e.g. at suburban office parks) pay well enough to cover the cost of a cab from the nearest bus stop to the office every morning.
IME the lack of public will to walk a half mile, ride a bike in the rain, or wait ten minutes at a bus stop is by far the greatest barrier to use of public transit in America.
Using the word "salary", and talking about paying cabs to drive to buses shows that you ignoring the reality of a huge segment of the working population, who work hourly, and have childcare needs.
No, I'm not. I was giving two conditional scenarios, and dismissing the "salary" one precisely because the people you're telling me I'm ignoring are unlikely to work in those locations.
To reiterate:
IF you are not working in an office park off an interstate near an affluent suburb, most mid-sized American cities have enough transit to get by.
IF you are working in an office park off an interstate near an affluent suburb, then you're probably making enough that you can stitch together a combination of public transit and taxis to get to work from a low-rent area.
And yeah, long commutes suck when you're paying for child care. Which is why a lot of people choose a child care facility close to work.
Basically, my point was that I know a lot of Europeans whose commute involves > 1/2 mile of walking. And also a lot of Americans who live in cities that "don't have any public transit" because they have to walk 1/2 - 1 mile to get to a stop that takes them directly to work.
I'm not saying American public transit doesn't need to improve. Just that if Americans always demand door-to-door service, then public transit will never be good enough. And, more over, will always suck because that's an impossible demand.
It requires some walking and biking, and some employment options do disappear. But most of those employment options are recoverable because the salaries (e.g. at suburban office parks) pay well enough to cover the cost of a cab from the nearest bus stop to the office every morning.
IME the lack of public will to walk a half mile, ride a bike in the rain, or wait ten minutes at a bus stop is by far the greatest barrier to use of public transit in America.