The difficult thing for American transit advocates, who have been conditioned by current transit funding models to think only in terms of large projects, is to accept is that transit systems must be scaled to the intensity of the places being served. Rail lines to corn fields and commuter lots make great applications for federal funding in the current paradigm but produce systems that underperform and are expensive to maintain. A high-frequency bus loop is less glamorous and fundable but can reinforce a development pattern that drives investment.
