So, yeah. I think people underestimate the amount of people who believe the contrapositive of "if you build it, they will come." I have SMDH every time a big group has argued that more/better roads will just attract more new residents and we're already too stretched.
Think about it this way. There are about 100 busses in Austin right now.
The $7B rail network could easily buy 10,000 new busses, fully-loaded cost of 10-year service life.
Or put another way, free bus service for 100% of Austin’s commutes, forever. Maybe block off a special lane for busses and you get pseudo-rail at 1% of the cost. Maybe think about rail when the demand is proven. The pneumatic tire is an amazing invention for flexible human transport.
Light rail is almost always a waste of money, and it will probably never even get built, and if it does, it will take forever, and create more traffic than it solves. But if you can credibly suggest otherwise with a single example of a low-density light rail system in any comparable city that got better ROI than busses and bike lanes, I will consider that I may be wrong.
The political terrain means that BRT will fail. Any road will have to be shared. However, if road space is not threatened, certain political enemies won't be enemies.
So sometimes worse is better because you can assure some people that your solution is Pareto-optimal for them.
Things I hate about Austin:
1. PACs keep shouting down mass transit every time there's a ballot measure
1a. takes forever to get across town at 8 and 5
1b. I hate driving. I have worked in Chicago, and I'd like my commute time back for reading email, etc.
2. Housing and schooling are wholly inequitable
3. Broadband access is wholly inequitable