Yet having a car isn't a problem. America is really big and things you need to do or places you need to go are rarely just down the block. The country is bigger than any one city, and self-transportation is fundamentally essential for our economy.
People used to be able to just go down the block here. That's been made illegal many places by zoning.
The issue isn't cars specifically. The issue is our built environment requires cars. Maybe more things should just be down the block.
The continental United States has about 3.5 million square miles of land. By comparison China has about 3.7 million square miles. Roughly the same, give or take a few. Observe the number of public passenger rail lines that China has and the timeframe in which they were built them.
The idea that America is just too geographically big for public rail or any kind of public transportation system and we must be beholden to the car is categorically false.