Of course, the die was cast in the 40s, 50s, and 60s for the automobile. It's impossible to build effective mass transit to serve a low density population. But the argument should not be whether or not to build ineffective mass transit layered on top of low density sprawling metro areas, but instead about what are our nation's transit and residential goals in the long term, like next sixty years -- because you eventually have to fix the mess we've made.
Sure, I'm not arguing against the idea itself. My concern is how to approach it without it continuing to fester as a slush bucket for cronyism.
Today, the actual effect is not addressing actual "transit and residential goals". It's to funnel tax dollars to entities favored by the bureaucrats -- return the favor for campaign donations and so on (how else to explain that they've universally cost so much more than we agree to pay, yet they fail so dismally at attracting riders?).
So I believe that we need to find out how the system continues to be corrupted, so that we can go forward with a plan that can be reasonably expected to be successful. Following this pattern just digs us a deeper fiscal hole, without doing very much to address the real goal.
