I've been told that Golden Gate and certain Marin political elements have always been anti rail, forming an often bizarre coalition of train haters on both the left and the right.

GG appears to mistakenly think that it is running a competing services for Marinites, and some in that camp have always viewed this project as somehow diverting "their" riders, as though it is a zero sum game (the if you win=I must lose nonsense, that is so popular with the political extremes these days).

Since some folks would seem to be deliberately "talking up" this "impediment" to the train being extended, without "disrupting" (really?) transit (which, "implicitly", but as noted above, falsely, would "hurt" the poor bus rider, and possibly might even furry critters, and lead to the complete destruction of civilization as we know it....), the reporter may not be that far off on this take.

We have a mostly secretly (well) funded, pseudo lefto sounding, "non-profit", "tax exempt" "non partisan", "educational" organization called the Labor Community Strategies Center, which is the "front group" that funds something called the Bus Riders Union in LA. This group is often in a bizarre alignment with their right wing train hater counterparts in opposing rail projects. This is apparently to assure that the "masses" should "only" have truly "egalitarian" buses to ride, after the coming revolution. And thus, in the name of the "masses" the BRU is committed to stopping those "evil" "petite bourgeoisie" trains.

It has also been my understanding that this version of the "party line" is not altogether unknown in the Bay Area, as well.