I agree with you when it comes to transportation on the 150+ mile range (even though it would impact my job with Boeing!), but this article is about regional transportation issues in the Seattle area: commuter trips and trips less than 60 miles or so. It is for these trips (at least in the Seattle area) that mass transit has not worked and will not work. More roads are what we need here.
High-speed rail (up to 190 mph) and Maglev (up to 300 mph) are systems designed to be competitive with automobile and short-hop air travel between cities (between 100 and 450 miles, depending what source you read).
This does not rule out the necessity of local, urban transit systems such as light rail (trolleys). subways, low-speed maglev, etc. These systems don't need to travel as fast as the high-speed regional systems, but provide more local stops convenient for local commuters. They also provide faster service by bypassing congested roadways while helping to reduce that congestion and demand for limited urban parking.