Its just one disincentive. Tax driving overall to push people to more efficient (from a tire plastic/energy usage) standpoint.
Use those taxes to fund public transportation.
Use those taxes to fund public transportation.
Cars need space. Walking and bicycling (and public transit) need density. The environment for optimizing for each of those is completely opposite.
And once a person has invested in a car (the car itself and a home with enough space to store the car), and they use that car on a daily basis to commute to work or drop the kids off at school, they will be very unlikely to support taxes to pay for public transit, something they will almost never use, since they are already leaving the house in a car, they are going to do all their errands while out in a car.
Size: Switzerland 15,940 mi², Bay Area 6,966 mi²
Population: Switzerland 8.85 million, Bay Area 7.76 million
So given that, the bay area is twice as dense as Switzerland
Miles of train tracks: Switzerland 3,241 miles, Bay Area ~300 miles?
SF Bay Area has a bay, Switzerland is all mountains so it's not like Switzerland is particularly easier to cover in public transportation
Plenty of other places in the USA could be covered in trains. LA for example used to have the largest public transit system in the world. It was all torn down between ~1929 and ~1975. A few lines have been created since but, the problem in the USA is, except for maybe NYC and Chicago, public transportation is seen as a handout to poor people instead of the transit the masses use like most saner places. (Most cities in Europe and Asia). Getting it back to that point seems nearly impossible. Building one track at a time, each taking 10-20 years with Nimbys fighting them all the way means the density of tracks always is too small to be useful, and so no usage.
looking at the two respective largest cities: Zurich is about twice as densely populated as San Jose.
this has a huge impact on public transit viability.
https://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/#8/46.894/7.127
vs
https://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/#8/37.766/-120.721
those are the same zoom level.
I'd argue they show the bay area can sustain far more trains than it currently has.
If you check a Swiss train map you'll see they cover tons of tiny cities.
It's true that Zurich is more dense than San Jose. Some would suggest that's part of the problem. San Jose is less dense because it's missing the public transportation and therefore everyone needs a car, everyone needs places to park that car when shopping, working, sleeping. Everyone is driving to the city so lots of large roads are needed for the cars and so everything expands into car infrastructure. Public transportation enables urban density.