Comparing a transit card to the cost of a car is sadly not a fair comparison in most US cities--even ones with "good" transit systems. I've lived off and on in one of those cities, and have been carfree for almost a decade now. The tradeoff is that for many of those years in the US, my commute would be ~1.5 hours to go fewer than 15 miles, and would regularly require me to wait a half hour or more in <10f weather as buses bunched up due to streets clogged with snow. It is also impossible to have a night out without relying on ubers, since night buses and trains either don't exist or run so infrequently as to be dangerous. For many people, that extra $300 is going to be worth the cost for the freedom and flexibility of a car if the US can't drastically improve its transit systems.