This is the perfect example of how a capitalist society will naturally become less and less efficient. There were (and are) two competing transportation systems, trains and cars. Or put another way, which can extrapolate to a million other examples, public versus private.

Imagine there are two regions far from each other, but under the same economic and political conditions. One has cars and very few trains, and the other has trains and very few cars. The one with trains, because its more efficient, will cost people less money, thereby supporting less profits for the capitalists. The industries that would benefit from switching to cars know they would make a lot of money, and would be willing to spend money up front, if they knew they could become the dominant system. Thats where the corruption comes in. And it works its way through media and government.

In the other region, where cars dominate, there isn't as much lost potential profit for the industries that support trains. So there aren't train advocates able to corrupt the system to switch away from cars.

So when its good for people, like good public transportation, there will be pressure to destabalize it. When its bad for people, like when everyone needs to own a car, buy gas, have insurance, pay parking tickets and speeding tickets, and mechanics bills, etc, the only pressure to destabalize it is organized demands from the masses. Like some sort of grassroots movement, which will never happen, because there are too many other more urgent issues, the changes needed are confusing, and we're not organized.