Many cities in the OECD maybe. Lots of cities in Africa and Asia are going with the American model of car dependent sprawl and it’s completely untenable. My childhood home of Bangalore has become a nightmare.
India still invests a lot in public infrastructure. Bangalore is an exception. Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur etc have invested a lot in urban infra especially the metro. Bangalore was just not ready for the influx of IT companies and is having serious trouble keeping up. But I love the airport buses though.
Given India’s population, landscape plus the stave vs central govt politics, its unlikely India will see major car-dependent urban sprawl like the US. Indians are preferring cars because the urban infrastructure is full. Delhi metro spans 100 km end to end and it is at near to full capacity.
4M what? Delhi doesn't have 4M cars. It's pretty much bordering on 9M cars, 10M if you include the greater NCR area.
The closest number I can find is 31.8L daily ridership in the metro which seems reasonable. The metro had an annual ridership bordering on 1B in 2017-2018.
Given a population of 20M, the whole city doesn't travel at once.
Add on other factors like -
* 30% people (kids, housewives, elders etc etc) do not have a significant commute.
* Then a significant portion of the population has a commute less than 5 kms for which taking metro makes less sense - this is evident in the gargantuan numbers of e-rickshaws, tuktuks, tempos seen on indian roads which primarily serve distances upto 5 kms and are nary unoccupied during peak times.
* Then another significant chunk has commutes smaller than 10kms. Only a small percent has any significant commute.
* Plus based on other factors I know, and which would be too tedious to link here, metro is the third most occupied transport behind buses (first) and small transport like e-rickshaws etc.
Delhi doesn't need to build more, in non-peak times you'll find plenty of space. Even in peak times, even though you'll be uncomfortable, you'll still reach your destination within 10-15 mins of what it would take in non-peak time. The current plan is well developed till 2021 and would probably serve the needs of the city with sufficient capacity, though not necessarily comfortable.
Mumbai has two rail-based transports. The metro is tiny compared to the western railways network but expanding and going to cover huge swaths of the city. Though, I can totally understand about your experience with the railways. As a non-mumbaikar, those trains terrify me.
It's possible Bangalore just gave me a bad taste. I didn't find it quite so nightmarish in Delhi or Jaipur, but generally when I go to other parts of India I'm doing more touristy things so the daily headaches aren't as bad and get replaced with headaches dealing with hawkers.
Many of those places you are referring to aren't "building car dependent sprawl", they're just growing far faster than their planning/infrastructure can keep up with and slums are spreading in every direction.
They may be sprawling out (as is inherently going to happen when you build single-level unplanned structures), but they're certainly not designed for a car any more than they are for transit.
