This is a remarkably shallow and, to use your word, petulant editorial.  The rail project has had major problems, but it is still vital for the future of this island.  It will provide the spine for a development corridor that will allow us to finally halt the relentless suburban sprawl that is eating up our countryside at an alarming rate. Without such a corridor, how and where do we build the thousands of affordable rentals needed to tackle our growing housing and homelessness crisis?  The rail project will also prove an enormous boon to the working poor on the leeward coast allowing them to save not just money, but hundreds of hours a year –family time- that they currently spend stuck on the freeway.   To say “it’s been a mess let’s just walk away from the billions already invested” is thoroughly irresponsible. The threat that the Feds will demand the return of the $800 million or so they have already given us is real.