Aaron Peskin opposes the Central Subway

Former supervisor Aaron Peskin, like his former colleague, Jake McGoldrick, now opposes the Central Subway. He told SF Weekly columnist Matt Smith that his opposition was about cost overruns and inflated ridership projections. He predicts that the project will be canceled:

As more critics come forward, however, Peskin predicts that Pelosi will be unable to resist calls to cancel San Francisco's tunnel to nowhere. "Republicans could potentially kill the full-funding agreement, as they see that people like me and Jake are coming out against it," Peskin said. "We were voting for it when its cost was comparatively tiny, and estimated ridership was much bigger."

Actually, the project isn't much more expensive now than it was when Peskin supported it, and, like high-speed rail, the Democratic Party and the unions will fight for it to the bitter end.

Matt Smith deserves credit for opposing this dumb project for years.

Smith, a dedicated bike guy, also earned credit way back in 2003 with a column denouncing Critical Mass as bad PR for the city's bike movement.

Like a lot of the city's bike people, however, he went off on me when we got the injunction against the city's Bicycle Plan. And, like Aaron Peskin, he's a great believer in highrise development.

Hey, no one's perfect!

It would be good for the city if both Smith and Peskin now renounced the city's "smart growth," dense development policies that threaten every part of the city anywhere near a major traffic corridor.

One of the commenters to the SF Weekly story mentions the development angle on the Central Subway project. Big development money will be rushing into that part of town to cash in on the system, just like they see the Geary BRT as more of a development scheme than a transportation project.