Because their cities were designed in sensible ways where that wasn't necessary.

Parts of the country are still halfway reasonable. I'm in Manhattan, and can walk twenty minutes to Penn Station, where I can hop on a train and be in downtown Philadelphia in under two hours. I can get to most places in NYC by subway faster than you could drive there. A train to the airport can get me anywhere in the world.

None of this requires a car, and air travel aside, this was how most of the developed world was set up for the past several hundred years.