Fair enough, the special interest game is no fun[1]. But I'll take a bet on the stars aligning in Texas over California finding efficient building practices an

Fair enough, the special interest game is no fun[1]. But I'll take a bet on the stars aligning in Texas over California finding efficient building practices any day. In Texas, given all the immigration from other states, the prospect of the population doubling in a few decades and little place left to build freeways, I think there's a growing understanding among policymakers that higher-density transportation will be a necessity going forward. There's a long-term trend of immigration & congestion supporting the eventual adoption of a rail plan, it's just a matter of time. On the other side, I don't see any trends in California pointing towards sane governance, apart from the possibility of a constitutional convention (http://www.repaircalifornia.org/ http://www.repaircalifornia.org/), which is hardly a safe bet. So there's good reason to hope for Texas, I'd say, despite the history. [1] incidentally, I hear that to get the airlines on board, the new Texas HSR plan terminates at the airports specifically, while the earlier plan focused stops at city centers, which might have been better for TOD, but then this makes for inter-modality.