Houston’s light rail system is a depressing black hole that gobbles huge amounts of money, so we are reduced to feeling somewhat better about that waste by stories such as this one that portend an even bigger urban boondoggle:

A decade ago, local leaders [in the Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle area of North Carolina] started planning a regional rail system, hoping to avoid a future of clogged highways and frustrated commuters. . .
The Triangle Transit Authority wants to build the $759 million system. But TTA is struggling to answer rigorous questions from federal officials about predictions of how many people will ride.
No dirt has yet been turned, although TTA has spent nearly $43 million acquiring land and access to an existing railroad corridor.
The project’s cost has ballooned from a 1994 estimate of about $100 million to a new estimate of $759 million.

Even at that price, the 28-mile route would be seven miles shorter than its backers have long wanted, a reduction that saves money. Four stations were cut, three in North Raleigh and one at Duke University Medical Center.
For now, federal authorities have held up approval of most of the money needed for the project, more than $400 million. . . TTA’s ridership forecasts were “unexpected and unexplainable,” according to a memo written Aug. 1 by Jennifer L. Dorn, administrator of the Federal Transit Administration.
For the first time, [area leaders are] talking about possibly needing more money from Triangle taxpayers to keep the project on track. Previously, he and other TTA leaders have said that new local taxes would only be needed later to expand to North Raleigh and Chapel Hill. . .
TTA’s predictions for riders make clear that taxpayers should not expect the rail to make a huge dent in traffic. The system was last forecast to carry about 14,000 riders a day when trains start.
That number amounts to removing less than a lane of traffic on the busiest part of today’s Interstate 40.

Read the entire piece. Is there simply no end to this type of pork barrel spending run amok? Hat tip to Craig Newmark for the link to the Triangle area story.