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some goods points made oliver shick, although i question your theory that localisation is a good think or actually something that can be achieved realistically.
Studies have shown that travel times are remarkably constant over time and there is some inherent 'budget' that will be filled regardless of how you plan a city. i found this good review of the different studies:
http://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/tdc/documents/consistency-in-travel-time.pdf
in the canberrra example of master planning the idea was that the city would be a series of cellular communities where people would work and life but unfortunatly people didn't work where they were suppose to. so travel increases, the city needs to cater for demand and pressure is to construct more roads. the idea of putting uses together was there, but in practice, people that use the city seek to maximise their opportunities.
also strangely i quite like to travel myself - getting on a train is enjoyable if it is not full and on time, cycling across town is great fun and walking is relaxing. some would say driving is also enjoyable (i think i got that point from the car appreciation thread).
so i think that we need to admit that travel needs to be actively facilitated but we need to minimise the externalities produced from this travel - hence by strong bias against the car in the urban context.
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i don't really get crossrail either. seems a little illogical to me given the state of the rest of the system but politics always plays such a strong part in these things. decisions are not made on the basis of rationale / scientific decision making, they are made on the basis of politics and then justified to those that think they are not a good idea by science. This is not good planning in my mind. decisions need to be made on a consultative basis. this allows local involvement in the decision making process and an ownership of both the problems and the outcomes.