speaking only for myself, BART in my view is a classic example of a good idea (urban rapid transit) so compromised by the politicians and corporate oligarchs, that we got very little for our investment. Do you remember when one of the directors was caught having accepted campaign money from a vendor seeking further BART contracts? While this is not a rarity in our country it is a drag.
In the instant case, it is common for an organization--whether public or private--to find an "outside auditor" who will give them a favorable report even though there is evidence of malfeasance. Not very different from cherry picking the consultant to write an analysis of a proposed project in line with the attitude of the entity paying for the report while ignoring/downplaying unfavorable facts.
We have, at times on this board, debated whether it is physically feasible to run BART orsome other rail service across the GG Bridge. When BART decided having Marin in was no longer a good idea, an engineering firm was hired to declare the bridge was not strong enough.