This benefits no one except people that own houses near job centers (since it increases real estate pricing discrepancies).
Due to the local political structure, small town governments are able to sabotage the entire region's transportation network, perpetuating the problem.
The NIMBY's that support this use studies liked the linked one to justify this behavior (which is rent-seeking at best and racial/economic discrimination at worst).
I believe things are better where you live; I'm just trying to explain why your comments are controversial with the HN crowd.
Personally, I'd like more roads, parking, public transit, and bike lanes. It would alleviate some of the housing pressure in Silicon Valley, lowering real estate costs, which would improve the quality of service industries, increase the efficiency with which VC money is spent, and generally enable more startups.
Since I've not heard the news, what cuts in transit have been made?
With you personal vehicle, you might be stuck in traffic, have to circle before finding a spot or find a spot much farther than you expected and have a longer walk to do.
Unfortunately I only have direct control over my own actions, and very limited ability to influence the actions of other travelers or politicians. This isn't really an argument against the original commenter's point. If I get rid of my car and switch to public transportation, maybe on average the wait between buses drops from 1 hour to a millisecond less than an hour.
My most direct bus route to work has actually migrated to lower capacity vehicles in the face of exponentially growing ridership, with no schedule changes.
I could forgive this if AC Transit were out of money, but they're launching a ton of new service on obscure routes. They just don't seem interested in boosting capacity or frequency on the popular ones.
Can you tell Melbourne this, because our population is growing rapidly (~2000/week) and our public transport was once decent, but is now resembling a sardine tin factory. It's been a constant story in the papers for a decade.
a) near zero latency to take a trip I can take the subway and go home at any station. If I go by car I have to go back to the place the car is to be able to return home.
b) proportional penalty for leaving late: if you miss a bus or a train by 10 seconds, you have to wait for the next one, which can be an hour. This is true if you favor private cars over public transportation. The more people uses the bus, the more buses there are, and they come more often (in rush hours you can take a subway each 5 minutes). The problem solves itself.
c) availability: a personal car generally provides the same service during the day, at night, and can be used in rain and mild snow (heavy snow, if properly equipped). Yes, at night there is less public transportation. But at night there are no "traffic jams" either. When your needs are completely different that the rest of the population then a private car makes a lot of sense. This should be the main use.
d) flexibility/directness: a personal car can drive to almost everywhere, and can generally take a fairly direct route. But usually, people don't want to drive everywhere. Most people wants the same route that everybody else. That's why you have "traffic jams" in the first place. It is the same case that c), if your needs are so different that the rest of the population a private car makes a lot of sense.
In all cities I have lived (Barcelona, London, Stockholm) by far the best option was to use public transportation.