DC area has spent bazonga-bucks OMG amounts of money to keep doing these kinds of expansion projects. The silver line snakes way out through Virginia, for a pr

DC area has spent bazonga-bucks OMG amounts of money to keep doing these kinds of expansion projects. The silver line snakes way out through Virginia, for a pretty (very) small fraction of riders every day & a handful of people going to IAD (Dulles) airport. The Purple Line has started snaking around the beltway, at least for the northern MD parts that were still willing to fund & try, but has dragged on, slated originally to open last year & still at least 4 years out & crazy over cost. It seems unlikely to make a sea change difference, but perhaps!! We want to believe, maybe after a lot of time. DC started building a new streetcar network, and seemingly gave up after realizing fixed infrastructure like this was insanely expensive and prone to constant blockage. Most American cities highly subsidize transit. Going to fully subsidized is not really a major hurt. It's a kind of easy action we can just do, for little real pain. Much less pain than many of the expansive would be micro-mega-projects, that probably in most cases will be massive budget items with decades of debt, with only very very very long term development benefits. In DC, few of our transit systems have capacity problems. Our citywide network is quite good, very well connnected whatever direction you want in most places. The proposal that we add more busses, that we build new lines: it feels wildly out of touch, like it's prescribing someone elses solution, that doesn't make sense here. This is a good sensible next step for DC, to make what we have work much better for many, especially those who can most benefit.