While the East Coast and Midwest have plenty of costly federally funded transit projects, the biggest boondoggles are in Northern California. And, unless Congress starts intervening, billions will continue to flow to overbuilt, low-ridership projects in and around San Francisco.

For fiscal 2024, the Biden administration budget allocated $500 million to a six-mile extension in San Jose, now estimated to cost $12.75 billion. The most recent travel model for this project forecasted only 32,900 weekday riders for the extension, and that was developed with pre-COVID ridership. Actual utilization of the four new stations is likely to be far less.