It just doesn't really much involve roads.  We need more bicycle lanes and choo-choos.  Transport of goods and services really isn't all that big a deal.  We need to "encourage" people to live closer to where they work.  We do this by building multimillion-dollar condos and pricing people out of the local housing market by employing artificial constraints on land availability, and then we guilt-trip them by claiming that the problems thus created are all the fault of selfish individuals.

This is the Metro version of "planning".  It doesn't work; it has never worked, and it will never work.

Metro has a 35-year-long history of failure after abject failure, yet they take pride in the fact that they are a "model" for the rest of the country.  They are the only elected regional governmental layer in the country, and they don't quite seem able to grasp just why it is that nobody else has followed their "lead". 

It might have to do with the fact that they aren't "leaders" - they're failures.  And everybody else in the country recognizes that fact.

Yet they keep following the same failed approaches, and apparently hope for a different outcome each time.  This is the definition of insanity.  And among their absolutely craziest "leaders", Metro councilor Rex Burkholder is really a standout.

Led by Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder, officials at the regional planning agency repeatedly have said that building new highways is no longer the solution for the area’s growing congestion problems.

Instead, Burkholder and the others have said that the Regional Transportation Plan to be adopted next year will stress such land-use goals as encouraging people to live closer to where they work and shop, in part by encouraging more mass transit.

This idiot claims that there's not enough money to build more road infrastructure.  But they can divert billions of dollars to build stuff like:

The floating eastbank esplanade.  A multimillion-dollar pedestrian and bicycle bridge.  Light rail.  Streetcars.

All paid with your highway dollars, and all a lie.