What I have heard of the situation is car infrastructure is disproportionally funded because it's used by the rich and influential. It's a drain on public resources when more is spent building huge highways everywhere that the average person can't afford to use.

While this is true, it's not as bad as somewhere like the US. Public transit gets a lot of funding there, I think they open something like 10 new MRT stations a year on average in recent years, and buses typically come every 2-8 minutes so you never have to wait long.