I’ve ridden the line before (to Pasadena), and I agree that there’s a lot to like about it.

But running tracks down the center of freeways, as they do from Old Pass to Sierra Madre, just isn’t going to bring in the riders. Psychologically, the time you spend waiting on the platform – say, 10 minutes – is stretched subjectively into “a long time” because of the constant rush of fast-moving cars right in front of you. Isolating the station thousands of feet from the nearest possible destination doesn’t help any, either. It basically turns light rail into a park-n-ride – and maybe that’s OK, maybe that’s the only way to alleviate freeway congestion. But it’s a short-term fix to a long-term problem of an auto-centric culture.

I bring up the gold line because I’ve seen your name (or, I’m not sure, maybe it’s your father’s name) associated with the planning of the project…. and I think it’s ironic that someone who helped design ridership estimates for a project where ridership has come in at about a third what was projected is casting aspersions on some else’s ridership estimates.

I just don’t see any evidence that this is in fact what happened. And our friend Bob certainly hasn’t offered any.

Since there is nobody on this site who has the power to cause the deaths of millions, irrespective of whether they would if given the power, guessing who you are replying to is a bit difficult.

I’ve not seen any special brilliance in the handling of issues by the CHSRA to suggest they need to be guaranteed their independence to continue delivering their brilliant handling of issues.

Indeed, trying to make the incompetent design of the Transbay Basement Train Station into an issue of the number of platforms seems in retrospect to have been as big a blunder as I argued at the time.