The comment was made in this thread that America (including Utah) simply have a different culture than other countries. Unlike other nations (like European countries), we have a car culture: it is expected that getting from point A to point B is going to mean driving. Therefore, we should not expect counter-cultural infrastructure like bike lanes, mass transit, and so forth to work, because that's just not how things are done here. What we have here works here, and what they have works there.

There's more than a little truth to that, but the culture is also self-perpetuating. When cars are the only way to get around, you'll get a car culture; people will buy homes in the suburbs with two- or three-car garages and little regard for how they might get around if they didn't have a car, because there's really no other choice. Then, once they have arranged their lives around driving, they see little use for bike lanes, public transit, and the rest, because they will be driving to work one way or the other. The car culture thus reinforces the car culture.

It would be a mistake, though, to say that we should ignore non-car-oriented transit solutions just because we have already cast our lot with cars. (Probably equally wrong to say we need to root out cars and driving or else the planet will die in 2050. It's unfortunate that urban planning has become as polarized as it is, but what else would you expect from politics in America these days?) The better thing would be to say, people make choices based on options that are presented to them, and a healthy society is one where lots of options are available. Give them a crummy bike lane or a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, and you can't be surprised when no one uses it.

Culture is self-perpetuating in this regard too: give people good transit options to get from desirable origins to desirable destinations, and not only will they use it, but their use makes the origins and destinations more desirable. There are people who want to live in the building next to the light rail station, and businesses that want to operate near them. Drivers are not made worse off as a result-- much the contrary, where they are able to drive into the office and get dinner at a nice restaurant that opened only because they were confident they could take advantage of rail ridership or residents in the mixed-use housing next door.