The BART budget crisis is a wake-up call for a lot of Bay Area commuters. Listen to this comment from the S.F. Chronicle's BART discussion board on the Web:

The American way of life is fast coming to an end. I'm talking specifically about the comfort we have of living in suburbia, 30 miles away from where you work, and wasting a crap load of resources in the process. It doesn't matter if it's gas or BART, this American Suburbia way of life is inherently wasteful. Yes, I know people feel like they need a four bedroom home and a two car garage to house a family of four, so they move to Antioch or Pleasanton to afford it and commute via car or BART, but don't you get it; it's EXTRAVAGANT. And it's a luxury the middle class american won't be able to afford. Think about how gas is going up. So you think, I'll take the BART, we'll, BART's getting more expensive, MUNI, CalTrain, all going up. So any way you look at it, if you have a 30 mile commute, you're screwed. You pay for it one way or the other. There is no solution until people realize this American Dream of buying a big ass house in the suburbs is a bad, bad, bad idea. We did this to ourselves.