I’ll admit it was a reactionary comment as I see the sentiment a lot without any nuance and it kinda annoys me, considering I make conscientious choices all the time and people like you (maybe not you in this instance) will pass judgement and make me question myself.

I apologize for having come across as "passing judgement." I was going for a tone closer to this (trying to shock you out of complacency), but missed the mark a bit.

It was also a little strange shitting on a places public transport infrastructure

Technically, I didn't dispute your mention of Manchester having good public transport (which I have no reason to disbelieve); I shat on British Rail's intracity public transport. And yeah, I freely admit that Amtrak is infinitely worse: the entire 5-million-people Atlanta metro area is served by one train a day, which shows up roughly at midnight! I figured that just means I know a thing or two about extremely shitty rail, LOL.