A large part of the problem (at least in North America) is exclusionary and Euclidean zoning, as shown here. On the vast majority of urban land in the US and Canada, it's literally illegal to build anything besides a detached single-family house. Not even a townhouse. Not even a duplex. Not even a corner store. Not even a local grocer.

In addition, other deed restrictions such as setback requirements, lot minimums, lot coverage maximums, and parking minimums artificially reduce density even further.

And the reason I'm talking about density is because density is exactly why public transit is so infeasible for most suburbs -- when you have this artificially low-density sprawling suburbia, basically nothing but driving is practical.

The traditional style of building American cities was the streetcar suburb, where walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods of missing middle housing were served by dense networks of streetcars. But many of these neighborhoods (as shown in the picture above) were literally demolished to make way for the automobile, and the streetcar lines were torn up. One of the few cities in the western world that didn't tear up its streetcar network -- Melbourne, Australia -- has the largest tram network in the world to this day.

The bad news is it won't be easy to make our cities transit-oriented and walkable again. But the good news is it will be easier than making them car-oriented in the first place. Why? Because we had to literally demolish our cities and rebuild them for the car. And we did that only 60 years ago. To fix our cities, we just need to abolish the laws (like zoning and parking minimums) that legally enforce low-density sprawl, which will allow infill to occur organically, replacing parking lots in city centers with housing and businesses. Additionally, it would be wise to tax land to further incentivize that infill and disincentivize land hoarding and speculation. And of course build more transit and bike infrastructure to support the new density.

Edit: Bonus points, as restrictive zoning (and other deed restrictions) are the primary contributors to the housing crisis. Eliminating them and allowing more housing to be built would alleviate the housing crisis, grow the economy, and reduce inequality. There is overwhelming evidence that loosening onerous zoning laws contains housing price growth.

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