I think the difference in geography makes a, well, difference. It's just a lot of people stuck in tiny towns that are several miles long in one direction and around 150 yards in the other, most of them up different hollows or branches of hollows. Mass transit that's actually workable would be difficult. Hell, I used to date a woman who was a social worker who did in home adult education and more than a few of her clients had directions to get to them that involved things like turning off the road to drive several miles up a creek bed, because neither federal, state, nor county considered it a place worth running a road to.

I kinda think running a ferry line that went up and down river and across, with each line going from one set of locks to the next with a shuttle to take you from one side of the locks to the other and local busing could work, but only for the places on the Kanawha. But even then going from where I used to live to Charleston would look something like bus->ferry->shuttle->ferry->bus. Going to be hard to make that look attractive compared to a 20 min drive.

And mind you I actually like mass transit. The times I've been to Boston I literally just grab a 7-day pass for the T and take it everywhere, but something like it just doesn't seem practical given the geography and population distribution here.