That last paragraph comes full circle. When Santa Clara County opted out of BART, money that would have gone to BART was instead partly used for the expressway

That last paragraph comes full circle. When Santa Clara County opted out of BART, money that would have gone to BART was instead partly used for the expressways. Southwest Expressway is the most puzzling, running just from Stokes (by Bascom) to 280. Dunno if it was originally planned for more. Tons of money goes into VTA rail to serve very few passengers. Its routes were chosen for political reasons rather than actual demand. (Note that the MV line runs right by where Lockheed Martin is/was, and its primary Congressional advocate as head of the Transportation Committee, Norm Mineta, was a Lockheed executive after he quit Congress mid-term after losing his chairmanship.) Now, I often get to wait at the VTA crossing of Central Expressway for empty trains to cross. Yay.