In California, $10 billion so far has been spent on high speed rail. The new bus terminal in SF was $2 billion, though admittedly that includes a skyscraper and a park. The Bart extension to Milpitas cost another $2 billion.
In Manhattan the first phase of the second avenue line cost $4.5 billion and the second phase will cost $6 billion.
It is not spent on transportation, it is spent on something else, and deducted from the transportation budget. If somebody steals your wallet and uses your card to buy an NFT, did you spend that? It came from your account.
Governments spent huge amounts of money on what they at least thought were public transportation projects. In California, the public voted for propositions approving this spending. This shows that spending on public transit is popular. The will is there. It's fairly conventional wisdom that improving public transit is important.
The execution of these plans is often pretty bad. This shows that something is going wrong other than having public support.
In California, $10 billion so far has been spent on high speed rail. The new bus terminal in SF was $2 billion, though admittedly that includes a skyscraper and a park. The Bart extension to Milpitas cost another $2 billion.
In Manhattan the first phase of the second avenue line cost $4.5 billion and the second phase will cost $6 billion.