It is not going to be possible to get people out of their cars. Even where you have excellent public transport that has not happened. All you can hope to do is provide an alternative to those who opt not to drive. The automobile's great advantage is that it is DIY - public transit's only way to even the score is to go driverless and dump the high union operators wages.

Speaking of which, what ever happened to the automated freeway or the driverless automobile? I guess that would kill the power trip. Perhaps that's a clue as to why people won't give up their cars - it's a vice, the sinful pleasure of acting out aggressions. I'm sure Freud would have had some interesting comments on road rage. Where I live drivers blast thru city streets at 10, 20, 30 mph over the speed limit and the cops just look the other way. Pity the poor pedestrian. They are like targets in a video game.

AS to the HSR on the Peninsula the simple solution is to move to the 101 corridor. Clearly the CHSRA would rather take on the Peninsula towns than Caltrans. If those "NIMBYS" in Palo Alto can't found out who's protecting 101 and why, they should have to give back their Ph.D's.

Every now and then a ray of reality peaks thru the clouds of obfuscation. As today with Willie Brown's column in the SF Chronicle, where he suggests that the only way San Francisco can keep the '49'ers in SF is for Gavin Newsom to quiletly slip money to the anti camp in Santa Clara. Advice from the grand master of the fix. Apply "follow the money" to the CHSRA and just maybe the truth can be ferreted out