[B]Virtually none of the extensive car-related infrastructure pays its own way either, and no one bats an eye at the fact that so many taxpayer dollars are going towards it...[B]

It presupposes that "no one will ever take" the trains, when that just isn't true in places that have decent train systems

Our culture isn't currently set up for rail, like say Japan is...

(1) The interstates have paid themselves over a billionfold in lower transport costs, shorter and more precise delivery times, and many other ways.

(2) I am not presupposing anything. In postage stamp countries and regions where gas prices are artificially inflated to $10 a gallon, people take trains. But the data show only Paris-Lyon and Tokyo-Tokyo Osaka recapture their costs, in any way. In *******, freight trains generate billions of dollars of profit per year. Passenger trains are a lost cause.

(3) Mon cher amour Gomez, culture is the last excuse of the social scientist. I did not need a car al lthe years I was in Japan, but neither trains nor buses frequently went to where I wanted to go. I would either walk or bike, if the weather was warm enough.