BART is going on a feeding frenzy over its Taj Mahal line to San Jose, trying to quickly cover with concrete any doubts about the validity of the election. All of the transit agencies, including SMART, would do well to increase their lobbying budgets to protect their project funding. BART is the schoolyard bully who will steal their lunch money.

I am particularly concerned about the Caltrain electrification, which I believe BART has always tried to thwart. Why? - because it will provide an example of a modern electric railway against which BART can be compared. People who like trains are aware of BART's many failings and shortcomings but the general Bay Area public is oblivious.

Having an example of a different approach could call in question the basic BART concept which I consider to be in error from the get-go. Dropping a transmogrified broad gauge version of a Manhattan subway into the California suburbs was the BART vision. I submit electrified suburban railways would have been better served the East Bay with subway-surface light rail in the city cores. But I don't deny that the SP would have opposed it tooth and nail.