According to Wikipedia, BART is currently 104 miles of rail. That's probably less than half of the NYC subway. While the expansion is great, I think I'm talking about being even more ambitious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit_expansio...

The HSR is CA was funded in 2008. It looks like the first leg through Fresno might happen in a year or two. China went from no subway to the biggest subway system in the world in 15 years. They have 5000 miles of HSR. We have zero.

If you really want to get people off the highways, mass transit needs to be made more convenient, not the lesser of two undesirable choices.