Chris Bray writes for the Federalist about another Golden State boondoggle.
In a much-discussed phenomenon, blue state government spending is soaring, and doing so against limited population growth. …
… The culture of progressive governance lights money on fire for symbolic performances that never produce the promised results, and it creates money-hungry projects that become impossible to shut down even when they obviously don’t work. The most infamous of these projects is California’s high-speed rail project, with a plan approved in 2008 to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco by bullet train. It hasn’t done that, it won’t do that anytime soon, and the budget keeps climbing for a project that keeps becoming significantly more modest in its promises.
But here’s another example of blue culture waste, and it’s maybe even easier to show how preposterous it is because the thing is actually working. And the end state, what it looks like when it’s up and running, is almost more absurd than you’ll be able to believe. …
… This story also starts in 2008, the year California voters approved a plan to build the bullet train. At the same time, Bay Area voters in suburban Sonoma and Marin counties approved a sales tax increase to partially fund a regional commuter train that would also get state and federal grants, the SMART train: Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit. The system, a single north-south line, is still under construction, but the parts that have been built are in service. …
… There’s a war of words, right now, over the success or failure of the SMART train, with critics calling it a hopeless waste and regional government officials attacking the critics as liars. … Advocates said that the trains would take people off the 101, the arterial freeway that connects these communities, reducing traffic congestion and preventing climate change. Yes, they really said the train would help to stabilize the climate. Critics said that an intra-suburban rail system would become a hobby train, not serving serious commuters and not having a real impact on traffic.
