We were not made to live the car-imposed nightmares of much of the world's cities.

Sufficient funds to our cities will fix this quite easily.

One example would be San Francisco, which effectively runs its own transit system. Of course, this is an unusual situation because the city of San Francisco and county of San Francisco are consolidated and share a mayor and board of supervisors.

I wrote in myself this year. I think I could do a pretty good job, and I think I'd make better cabinet picks (though the DOE one is pretty good, I'd prefer to give the job to a chemical engineer who deals with existing technologies rather than future ones). I would really put a lot of money into transit and energy infrastructure. You would be amazed at the built environment! And oh, the state dinners would be magnificent. I think I would eventually win over everyone.

See this is just not very respectful, or accurate. It is possible to be optimistic and cynical (or calculatingly realistic) at the same time. I would even say that it's most healthy to be both things. If you're so sure things will turn out badly, why not just end it all now?

Maybe your friends deceived themselves, but it's common knowledge that no front-running presidential candidates supported equal marriage rights, or told the truth about energy. I wonder who you voted for, if not Clinton, surely not the soap-operatic Edwards? But this isn't the time or place. If you want to litter Streetsblog with self-satisfied, i-told-y'all-so anti-obama bitching, there is nothing I can do to stop you. It will have the opposite effect on me though, that I can't say deprecatory things about Obama (like pointing out how his effective visual brand was important to winning the election and not much else, a simple fact of history) because you will come in and crap all over the lighthearted note.

If you can't see the criticism of Obama from pro-transit people going on right now, including Obama primary voters, you've had enough sherry for tonight.

I think that Obama has taken advantage of progressive people, and I'm worried that during this economic downturn such issues as climate change and transit are just going to be completely ignored.

I don't know if it was his stance on coal or marriage equality that really turned me off more, but I was amazed when people didn't even know that he held these positions, or insisted that he held the opposite, or "didn't really mean it."

I'm sure Obama will bring change to transit-- pennies! And it's because he can count on the good will of pro-transit people. If people criticized him on such things maybe he would throw some money and support to transit to shut them up. However, by using this slot as a spot to throw bipartisanship a bone, he obviously doesn't see it as important.

Perhaps I can throw away my cynicism born of experience and begin to think magically and believe that America's urban transit revolution will be run by a Republican from Peoria.

I'll say this-- It's not completely impossible!

I admit that it was a good year for the Democratic party, but it was a disaster for progressive people (proposition 8, Gates as SecDef, etc.).

But I see that my continued optimism, my terribly naive faith ("hope", actually) that a candiate would stay true to his expressed principles a full month ago is still on your mind. Another grudge! (Really, this is not good for digestion.) I have an idea: I'll try to moderate my optimism if you will try to moderate your negativity. We all need to negotiate with the president-elect to see that our views on transportation are represented in his administration. That means neither blindly accepting whatever Obama does (like with the stimulus) nor insulting him and his supporters at every turn. Health care is for another forum, and dropping bitter bombs all over any discussion where Obama's name comes up is not helpful in making anything good happen.

I think it's funny that progressive people were all concerned that HRC was too much of a hawk even if she had more clout on domestic issues than the corporate whore anti-heath care reform, pro-coal BO.

Yet I was repeatedly instructed to have "faith" in this miraculous leader.

Now, what do we have? HRC as Hawk In Chief and political-corporate whoring up the wazzoo.

BO will throw transit under the bus as soon as it suits him.

Part of my "free transit" argument is a negotiation. We need to overcome the assumption that rail systems should have to pay for themselves. After all, who pays for the Highways?

Of course, free transit would bring complaints from people who don't use the system (can't as you point out because it doesn't always go where they need to) and I'm sure current riders would be apprehensive about overcrowding.

Still, I like the idea of having a carrot in addition to the stick (East River bridge tolls/congestion pricing).

Ask each of them to create a plan showing how much Federal funding they would require to make their systems FREE for riders and how much money to support the increased demand.

It would be easy to audit. Are the systems free? Where is the overcrowding? Are they adding more trains/buses there? If the transit systems play by the rules, the money keeps flowing.

It's green, it puts people to work, it encourages density, and it helps the economy as people can move about more easily.

Fair enough; I didn't know that!

I still resent the inordinate influence Albany has over NYC Transit.

There is no way you can hand a pot of money to Bloomberg and get better transit out of it.

Sorry, but this is just not true. The City used to contribute a substantial amount to the MTA budget; this was first cut by Giuliani and continued under Bloomberg. The City was also supposed to pay for the construction of the #7 extension to the Javits Center; I'm not sure what's happening with that.

I'm not totally sure but I think most of the other big-city Authorities are state-controlled, too.

In many other areas, transit a *county* function. In fact, I can't think of a city that runs its own transit system.