> Furthermore, there are innovations coming that might shorten commuting (e.g. things like Hyperloop, although I have no idea if that's viable) It's not. > an

> Furthermore, there are innovations coming that might shorten commuting (e.g. things like Hyperloop, although I have no idea if that's viable) It's not. > and self-driving cars (which let you read/work/etc while commuting) Self-driving cars won't make it better. Induced demand is a well-studied phenomenon and as I and others have pointed out, cars waste absurd amounts of space per person, whether moving or parked. > The government is not going to be able to deploy $100b better over the next few decades than the private market. There's a difference here between the well-studied problems of public choice and the well-studied problems of public goods. The former predicts that governments will face a constant battle not to become captured by special interests that drain away public funds. The latter predicts that private industry will never provide these things to a level that maximises net utility. > Finally, the rise of remote work might mean a lot of professions commute less in the future. My prediction is this just going to be an exercise in setting $100b on fire. A lot of work is not remote and won't be, plus a lot of folks greatly prefer to leave their homes so that it is only home and not some never-not-working hybrid. There's also the small problem that Star Trek style matter replicators don't exist and it remains necessary to deliver things to people, wherever they choose to be. And it remains necessary for those same people to sometimes go to other places to collect them.