So did you ever see Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Remember the plotline about the Red Car trolley being bought out and dismantled by Cloverleaf, and the villain's Big Reveal that they planned to demolish Toontown and put a highway through it, and people would use it because the Red Car trolley wasn't there to use anymore and so they'd be FORCED to buy a car?
That really happened, in the US. Only instead of the villain being an evil cartoon posing as a judge, the villain was General Motors and Ford and all the big car companies. They bought public transit lines and dismantled them. They lobbied congress to fund the interstate highway system and they CONTINUE to lobby the us govt to keep trains and public transit from having any money, while making sure the roads get lots of it. They are responsible not only for the dismantling of public transit but also the public's perception that public transit is bad and even dangerous.
American media thinks busses and trains are dangerous because the car companies have spent DECADES and billions of dollars on propaganda making sure Americans think that so they will continue to buy cars and not question how much roads and highways have destroyed the landscape.