You have that exactly backwards: the tunnel was a fixed price design-build contract and somehow the courts held it to the original price (still $1billion more t

You have that exactly backwards: the tunnel was a fixed price design-build contract and somehow the courts held it to the original price (still $1billion more than fixing the viaduct, the benefits which accrue to private land owners downtown). The light rail was originally going to be to the University District by 2006. Ridership wasn't even close to original predictions. It's slow and will never replace more than a small fraction of traffic by design; the stations are too small, the area around them isn't zoned dense enough to bring in more more people, and there are no express bypasses so it will always be slow.