Something I think politicians and planners in urban hellholes for the most part really fail to realize is that reducing the number of cars in your city, and everything that comes with them (parking), is a key way to make your city a nice walkable environment. Obviously massive disincentives for car ownership/use in the absence of any other options will just drive (hah!) people out of your city, but if you've managed to build a fairly extensive subway system which functions reasonably both as intra-city transit and as a suburban commuter system, as Washington's Metro system does, then you do have other options, such as making car use/ownership less necessary by extending service hours. Also, we fret a lot about drunk driving in this country, then we allow bars to stay open hours after most transit service is cut to a minimum. I wish my urban hellhole kept the subway open for another couple of hours (not that I'm ever out that late), at least on weekends, and it would be a shame if Metro in DC were to kill their late service.
My local transit authority did at least start running some later commuter trains on weekends. A few of the trolley lines do actually run all night as do several bus lines.
At least we're making progress in the war on curb cuts.
