"...if we can get funds for.."
Taxes
Not necessarily....
Traditionally, infrastructure construction has often been funded through the issuance of tax-free bonds... and the debt is repaid via revenues from tolls/fares.
"..We could also subsidize riders ..."
Funny.
Many municipalities deliberately choose to subsidize mass transit because it is believed to benefit local businesses and merchants (much the same way as providing "free" municipal parking lots.)
IMHO, it will probably be unnecessary to subsidize mass transit riders in many locales due to rising fuel and insurance costs and tolls imposed on highways (because legislators are too afraid to increase the gas tax to cover highway maintenance costs.)
That, and simply because traffic congestion and gridlock is a PITA.
Total untruth. It doesn't bother me, or 300 hundred million Americans.
I and hundreds of millions of Americans, as thinking adults, have structured our lives to never encounter it.
Everybody else, have as adults, made rational choices to live in areas with high population density. So, that's there choice. Everyone in a traffic jam...WANTS TO BE THERE, otherwise they wouldn't be there. They are free to choose. They choose traffic.
Taxes have to be paid. Investments that draw capital away from the private market, cause there to be less funds available in the taxed market, which means higher rates. There is no free lunch. You have a very shallow comprehension of economics.
Essentially all prospective American light-rail projects are promoted as being self-sufficient; no burden on the taxpayer.
In order to come up with the numbers to justify these claims, is is the custom for promoters wildly to underestimate construction and operating costs, and overestimate future ridership.
The persuasiveness of many of these boosters comes from having first taken the precaution to deceive themselves.