Landuse control for transit agencies

We regulate a lot of bad things- for example there is no gun range by your house, no paint manufacturer. We also don't regulate a lot of bad things like pesticides. Or cars which not only kill people and poison the air but now eat our food (ethanol), starve our soil (cellulosic), burn our forests (sprawl), and are threatening to drink our water (hydrogen).

Just because we don't regulate a bad thing does not mean its good and needs continued funding.

On the other hand its in-effective long range planning when we use federal funding sources with their insidious requirements like designed-in-racism-in-sprawl. Since the gas tax funds transport, cars get built into the cycle of generating revenue. Our MTC plans are then hobbled- for example crossing streets prevent effective grade separated Caltrain times and toxic traffic slows down buses and stunts children. Without going for a connected and whole transit system we end up with a discombobulated mess; primarily because none of the landuse changes to make it successful are thought through and implemented. Universities, for example, control the landuse decisions around the campus and can appropriate property, like San Carlos Ave and El Camino from the city and state. Transit agencies should control the landuses within a 1/4 mile of the STATION FRONT for a slow system like Caltrain and two miles for HSR. Without these landuse controls other modes have a hard time competing and getting access with cars and become sitting duck for the O'Toole's. And why walking, which is our signature form of transportation on this planet, ends up being called alternate transportation. Instead of bonding to raise matching funds for federal dollars we should bond or tax for a complete system and eliminate gasoline since it doesn't fund anything that's controlled locally.