Well that would be a bit of a crock, wouldn't it?

When your cities were being developed you already had tram and railway technology and the cities could have been planned around it. In our case we had to make do with medieval layouts and squeeze, say, railway stations and their tracks in where we could. You already had all the room in the world with the early siting of stations and the city growing around them.

Also we had to contend with railways crossing well-established land ownership/usage etc., plus the problems of navigating our wibbly-wobbly land contours. In your case you could just draw a straight line from A to B and do it.
You talk as if you didn't have any railroads. And the grid-like layout of many of your cities surely facilitates the establishment of easy, efficient networks.

You could have more roll-on/roll-off trains to take people's cars to their distant destn.

It doesn't help that in the States and Canada, if you live oin the 'burbs, it's always a schlepp to your favourite bar, necessitating cars and designated drivers, whereas we can just stroll, within 10 minutes,to a MULTITUDE of pubs to choose from or, if that doen't satisfy, a short bus ride to many many more :-)

From what I've seen, there aren't so many "corner shops" and you guys need to drive to those outdoor, multi-outlet shop malls, fronted by a car-park, and just off the highway. We have a corner newsagent/sweet shop, opposite our corner pub, next to a chippy, and a convenience supermarket 2 mins walk away. There used to be a greengrocer and a butcher on opposite corners but the supermarkets have put paid to them.

>I wonder how much of that has to do with our country being much larger and spread out. Not just between cities, but the cities themselves as well? Probably harder to establish efficient mass transit.
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>>There's a lot of stuff on telly nowadays educating us on our "carbon footprint", and I'm just as guilty for taking frivolous trips out to Egypt for a week's diving, driving to work. But I do try by switching off unnecessary lights, switching off "stand-by" household appliances (PC, monitor, video, TV, digital TV receiver, broadband router, etc.), not taking the car when I can walk it, not having the heating on too high, et al. OK, I haven't been in many American homes, but film and TV representation of such always feature all lights on (even already on when returning home), 'puters always on, TV springs to life from the remote, driveways crammed with cars (and I HAVE seen this in Canada), the 6-lane highways (with 3 lane feeder strips) wall-to-wall with cars - again, seen for myself. I could go on. And don't get me started on styrofoam cups and burger cartons, etc.