> When transit service isn’t good, few will choose to use it. [...] improving American transit doesn’t necessarily demand multi-decade, hundred-billion-dollar i

> When transit service isn’t good, few will choose to use it. [...] improving American transit doesn’t necessarily demand multi-decade, hundred-billion-dollar infrastructure projects Yes, but it's not free either. Americans, for better or worse, just don't want to pay for public services they might not use. You see the private sector entering into agreements with localities to build toll roads knowing there is profitability. You don't see the private sector looking to enter mass transit presumably because of lack of profitability. One can argue for the social good to be borne by all, but surely there is a limit. Like it or not, you need majority support for public works projects, and it's not coming. Many of those who have flown to the suburbs have done so because of the propensity for their smaller city governments to not spend money on projects like these (or their increased voting influence to prevent it). So, unlike what the article states, you either have to give up on the suburbs or risk being voted out for giving up on the citizens' wants there. So your left with dense-urban-only transit because they are the only ones that want it. And it's ok. The want for quality mass transit outside of dense urban areas should be subject to the will of those that live there despite the objections by the ones that don't. If you want to tackle pollution as a matter of policy, so be it, but you can't make people ride a bus without doing so regressively.