Buses are transient and routes change over the years. Streetcars, due to rails, give a sense of permanence to an area to encourage development. San Francisco is a great example with expansion of the N-Judah. You can see development along Cole Valley, UCSF, Inner Sunset, etc precisely because the rail tracks were planted there.<p>OTOH, the 405 expansion project in Los Angeles was a boondoggle. $1.1 Billion and Five Years Later, the 405 Congestion Relief Project Is a Fail: <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/news/11-billion-and-five-years-later-the-405-congestion-relief-project-is-a-fail-5415772" rel="nofollow">http://www.laweekly.com/news/11-billion-and-five-years-later...</a>
Sounds like the author just doesn't believe that good public transit matters. He works for the Cato Institute and wrote books about "the futility of government planning"? Yeah, it shows - this article is basically just "how to tell if your transportation project is ideologically correct according to a strictly Randian worldview", and that world sounds like a pretty depressing place to live.