THE PROPOSED LIGHT RAIL SYSTEM FOR ORANGE COUNTY HAS BEEN criticized by me and others as a 19th-century solution to a 21st-century problem. But I’m beginning to wonder whether we’ve failed to appreciate this Center Line’s engineering attributes.
After all, the billion-dollar-plus project speeds ahead, right past concerned residents and businesses, a disinterested public and contemptuous academicians. Politicians board at every stop, repeating the mantra that something must be done to alleviate traffic congestion, apparently even if it means building a trolley line that the overwhelming evidence suggests will fail to take any cars off of the freeways.
The project levitates above the realm of reason, a fast-tracked monument to those proficient in the art of building things, any thing, with taxpayer money.
All aboard! (But watch your step.)
