And what we need given the amount of housing development and potential office development on the west shore is a real transportation solution that is scalable without multi-year, multi-million dollar public works projects coming after years of point failures. We need to situate a rail corridor somewhere NOW and allow residential and office development to grow organically around the stations, rather than trying to shoehorn a line in there after. A vehicle-based system is too susceptible to point failures and past experience all over the world has shown that scaling is problematic, not to mention the other negative environment, social and aesthetic impacts.
I agree with this to some degree. Having moved here over year ago I amazed at the sort sighted "transportation plan" . It makes no sense to wait. I am a firm believer in "build it and they will come". I talked to the development staff at the Westhills project and they told me that they have land set aside for a terminal of some sort and support some from of people movement system. In our conversation they mentioned that they like a "European Tram" system which would run on rubber wheels on the rail corridor that passes through their lands. They also told me that have 30 acres set aside for commercials/retail /office, condo development that could easily start development today if major tenants could be attracted by the development of a valid transportation plan to move people. They, like everyone it seems, are waiting on some political will to think beyond today and actually plan for tomorrow.