Right - public transit needs to be usable in the place you're traveling to if you're going to take a train. This is why a lot of people would rather drive from, say San Francisco to Los Angeles. Suppose you were to take a train instead. Then... great?! what would you do next? You wouldn't have anywhere to go, so you'll need a car anyway. You'd either have to rent one or just skip the train and do the drive instead.
Probably a lot easier and feasible in my opinion to build the local public transit first, and then focus on the regional/national transit system.
Misrepresenting the target group is just an added bonus. It's like referring to all indigenous people as "indians" - even if they were from India (which they're not), it's just taking a blanket term and making them all seem like they're the same. At least that's why it's even funnier in this context.
But generally speaking, when people unironically use the term to refer to all whites, well, that just shows that they don't really understand the meaning of the term they are using.