Spotted the American.
You have very little understanding about city development and planning. Otherwise you'd know that most of the transport corridors that are in use today were started in the Industrialisation period when trams were introduced.
A city with millions of inhabitants can't be explained by looking at the small population in the centre.
Vienna has an amazingly good and inexpensive public transport system and quite good bike routes combined with fairly inexpensive housing due to good city governance over several decades (social democratic party by and large).
The difference between most North American and European cities in terms of availabke transport choices is not what happened hundreds of years ago, but what city planners did in the post war period (50s to 70s).
It's not too late however, if you look at the incredible progress Paris had in the past 5 years.
Well 40 % of Americans are still supporting Trump as per latest polls.
Maybe decades of lead exposure in childhood are just not ideal for the development of a reasonable population in a country.