A few weeks ago, another SmartPlanet article quoted this study...
...and nobody was able or willing to answer my question: Why don't we study why people choose to live in places where their transportation options are so poor, and then try to make the places where transportation is supposedly good more desirable places to live?
My guess is that that question doesn't get asked because the solutions to those problems don't have a constituency to commission studies supporting solutions they're interested in providing.