Perhaps it is all for the best that SMART won. SMART management is so set on their scheme that a defeat would not have induced them to consider any modifications. SMART is oblivious to the shortcomings of its commuter doodlebugs - both SMART and the public will have to see their nostalgia laid out in hard steel and in the cold light of day.

Successful new transit systems in other areas benefitted from the fact that they already enjoyed a relatively stable level of public transit usage. Not so with the North Bay. The number of riders per bus is not what it was 25 years ago. Employment is so decentralized, perhaps more than ever, that I am not sure if getting people to work should even be the overriding focus any more of transit in the North Bay. Even the commute to Marin is not what it was, as many light manufacturing jobs left for cheaper locales. Major daylong on route destinations are what's needed - like the Rohnert Park casino which the local ninnies and political machine hacks are fighting. It is having 2,000 jobs in one place which makes public transit feasible.

SMART needs something significantly different and exciting, which only electrification can provide. In order to make the system faster and more reliable it needs more grade separation. After you add up the capital costs of these improvements, the extra expense of the catenary doesn't seem so daunting. And it is absolutely critical to start working on opening minds at the GG Bridge District about light rail on the bridge.

The election doesn't taste much like sour grapes to me. There is so much to celebrate. The BART Reich has been denied its conquest of Santa Clara a little while longer Ah but the fabulous victory of the HSR is so sweet. Now there's a project which will surely be an enormous success, unlike SMART. Just the local business between Fresno and LA should be most impressive. California will be the envy of the whole country.

And BART will finally be humbled by a real electric railway - no woossy third rail and no bizarro broad gauge.