[AdamJacobMuller]

It did not.

In fact the article comes dangerously close to admitting that there is correlation without correlation, it opens with:

> Here is the short version. In 2012, Caltrain budgeted its electrification project — the backbone of the Peninsula's transit future and a prerequisite for high-speed rail to ever reach San Francisco — at roughly $1.5 billion. By 2017 that number had ballooned to $1.9 billion. In between, the Town of Atherton sued.

While I don't agree with what Atherton did here (in general, I did not look at the specifics), you have to be fairly negligent to think you're going to build something in California without a massive legal headache. This is a legislative problem which it sounds like, for this narrow case, the legislature actually solved (shockingly to me). I find it hard to blame the residents of the city for exercising their rights.

[danans]

> This is a legislative problem which it sounds like, for this narrow case, the legislature actually solved (shockingly to me). I find it hard to blame the residents of the city for exercising their rights.

Filing frivolous lawsuits is also a right but we don't withhold our criticism of that practice. What Atherton did seems like the wealthy person's equivalent of that, down to it being dismissed. Legal? yes. Cynical and amoral, also yes.

[AdamJacobMuller]

I agree, and I do not take issue with the general complaint (frivolous lawsuits) I am merely pointing out that your ire should be directed more at the legislature not at the people.

[em-bee]

you have to be fairly negligent to think you're going to build something in California without a massive legal headache

that's not fair. the question was: did the legal headache cause the budget-overrun. predictable or not, your response does not show that it didn't.

[AdamJacobMuller]

Neither did the article and they are journalists, I'm just an internet commentator.