Instead we see cities without any sort of optimization, repeatedly trying failed ideas, flushing tax dollars down the toilet. "This clearly isn't working, let's just keep doing it" ought to be the slogan for many midsize cities.
We wish these systems were optimized, but they're not. If they were, we'd at least see pushes to get people to live closer to work, the rejection of NIMBYs in favor of multiunit developers in central areas while in distant areas we'd see rejection of developers in favor of improved transit.
Many areas in my city have terrible access by car or public transit because the city has kept pushing back road and transit improvements while allowing developers to keep going. It's gotten so bad a few developers were offering to do road widening for the city on an interest free loan as their property values were taking a hit due to a reputation for long commutes - unfortunately that fell through even, it's a mess, a completely unoptimized mess.