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As someone who has lived in Los Angeles (which has actually horrible public transit in that it doesn't exist really and is expensive), and now Austin - while our public transit here is sub-optimal, it's far from the worst in the country, and you actually can get most places with it (I lived here for 18 months with no car, so I am intimately familiar with it).

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True, but "far from worst in the country" and "capable of dealing with the city's growth" are two different things. I'm originally from Arlington, Texas, which actually held the distinction until very recently of being the largest city in North America with absolutely no form of public transport whatsoever. I've seen both ends of the spectrum, and Austin still falls far short of where we need to be.

There's also the problem of finding a ride home after the bars close, which is far less doable given our current system. We also need to rapidly expand the light rail system, but efforts to do so seem to be floundering at City Hall.

>>There's also the problem of finding a ride home after the bars close

Completely agree here, but this has a really easy solution: let in Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, etc.

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