​Transit only works in New York . . .

Suburban. Comma. Transit. | Newgeography.com

. . . due to Manhattan's employment density. It doesn't work elsewhere.

​More below.

"Transit works best when one compact highly productive walkable neighborhood is connected to another compact highly productive walkable neighborhood. Manhattan or Hong Kong isn’t required. A plain vanilla Main Street with two and three story buildings works just fine."
 
No, it doesn't. Transit in the suburbs, or in the environments described, in the real world, not some fantasy world, cost a huge amount, and is never economically effective, or efficient. Frankly, a share ride Uber like system where the poor could be subsidized by the government would be a far more cost effective, pollution effective, and efficient system. Plus, it would offer the poor the gold standard transit, which is safe, comfortable, quick, door-to-door transportation. 

The last few days I've written a few long essays, they do take a toll, so I will not make this into one, but this site offers many insights into just how insanely expensive transit is, and in the People's Democratic Transit Republic of Portlandia! Debunking Portland Transit A quick takeaway, transit cost more than driving, it pollutes more, it congests traffic more, it requires huge subsidies, it move no one anywhere ever, it is deadlier than driving, and it never goes where the rider needs to go. This would be the lead paint standard, but then standards have standards, and, so, don't go that low.

"But each station was built in a spot that makes it unlikely that transit will live up to its full potential. This is the De Soto stop. The buses do a great job of getting passengers from one isolated station to another. This isn’t an accident. It’s the only set of arrangements the locals would tolerate – and the locals have a lot of lawyers. Transit is associated with the lower class and home owners here want no part of it. So they litigated for years until the proposed rail line was beaten back to a bus route and some decorative shrubbery that didn’t go anywhere too offensive."

Oh come on, doofus. This is all transit, it never goes where the rider needs it to go, that's why there are transfers, nice long walks both before boarding, and after, and all the other rigamarole. Transit is designed to take large groups of people from one vague notional spot where a group could possibly form, to another vague notional spot where a group might want to debark the transit leviathan. If you are extremely lucky one of those spots will be within a half mile of your start, or destination. If not, shanks' mare, pal, shanks' mare.

The following paragraph is a fool flaunting his foolishness.

"The eighteen miles of Bus Rapid Transit in the Valley cost $324 million dollars to construct. That’s $18 million per mile. Compare that to the recent $1.1 billion road improvement project on a ten mile stretch of freeway in the Valley. The freeway was already ten lanes wide so adding slightly better on and off ramps and tweaking the car pool lanes did exactly nothing to relieve traffic congestion. That’s $110 million dollars per mile. The same people who lament the waste of taxpayer money on transit think the city should be spending more to upgrade the roads."

Crikey, $324 million for no one to ride to nowhere? Great! The last sentence is utter rubbish. The city does not spend to upgrade the roads, the drivers of automobiles pay a tax which is used to upgrade the roads. That the city may be the entity which is responsible for the spending is immaterial, and in my view foolish. The spending should be accomplished by a public trust set up to administer the gas tax fund, not politicians who are constantly attempting to divert any, and all money's to some pet project, which will undoubtedly do little but erode the public coffers, and inflate the politicians ego. The public trust could be limited to dealing with roadways on an engineering basis, meaning spending must improve efficiency, for auto operation, not politician egos. 

The author gets this wrong because he wants to get it wrong. 

The authors penultimate, and ultimate paragraphs are actually quite good. The Valley should be separated from LA, Uber, the self drive car, and the myriad efficiencies which are coming will make the Valley a much better place to live, and will make commuting, transportation, and transit much better, and soon. The city of LA will continue to waste oodles of money on idiotic transit, light rail, BRT, probably trams, gondolas, and all manner of other trivial frivolity, and in the end the result will be crappy transit, and a pissed off public. Who continue to move to the suburbs! 

Boohyah.