In Santa Barbara we have this argument every day. They want the freeway widened between Ventura and Santa Barbara from 2 lanes to 3. One side says that won't help. The other side says it will obviously help. One side says the money'd be better spent on light rail. The other side says nobody would use it because they wouldn't have their cars at the other end to get from the train station to their jobs.
I'm pretty certain that either they will widen the freeway or they'll do nothing but they'll never build any decent alternatives. And that 223 Billion? Just giving the people what they want, I'm afraid.