The thing to remember whenever “better than the alternative” comes up is that transit is good where cars are bad and cars are good everywhere else. Transit is never going to beat out cars in environments where traffic is light, density is low, and parking is cheap. But traffic isn’t light and parking isn’t cheap where density is high.

This is about deciding which kind of city you want and building the transportation options that fit that environment. Cities built for cars are very different from cities built for density and walkability. You can’t compare the two modes devoid of that context.