Its a smart investment strategy. If you can offer someone a walkable little neighborhood where they can live, walk to a a gym, grocery store, and a couple bars or restaurants, AND also walk to a train that can take them to work and a few more areas. That is an attractive offer. Even if the person still has a car, people seem to enjoy not driving everywhere.
Yes. I actually think this should apply to publicly run systems as well.
It seems like in the US we often lament that government run systems run at a loss instead of a profit, but also tend to hamstring them from doing things (like building shopping, dining, offices, housing on top of transit stations) that a private enterprise would do to make its investment profitable.
