There's nothing particularly "radical" about it; if you weight everyone's utility equally when you design, e.g. a city, then the result is one that is definitio

There's nothing particularly "radical" about it; if you weight everyone's utility equally when you design, e.g. a city, then the result is one that is definitionally egalitarian. And that is precisely what it means for governments to, as you say, "focus on the preferences of the populations they actually serve." Egalitarianism is only "radical" in the sense that, in most real contexts, some the desires of some subset of people are considered more important- for instance, the people who can pay more, or are a more effective voter bloc. Not that I think the above is the decisive factor against wider adoption of public transportation. The bigger issue is an activation energy problem- public transit is only bearable and useful when a substantial portion of public funds are allocated to them, but the bulk of the public isn't currently inclined to have that happen since they don't presently use the (unbearable and useless) public transit option. Cars are a fairly vicious local maxima.