Despite being a real thing many other places around the world, high-speed rail is at risk of becoming a meme technology in the United States. Leading the case for pessimism is the endlessly depressing saga of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, which will end up spending $35 billion to finish a line that will not connect San Francisco to Los Angeles. On the other side of the country, in Florida, Brightline—the private sector’s first attempt at quasi-HSR—is saddled with debt and running in the red. After a few jubilant years under the Biden administration, Amtrak is now in Trump’s crosshairs, its nascent ambition to build the formerly-private Texas Central project between Dallas and Houston snuffed out by new Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

Cities are the physical manifestation of labor markets. They exist to minimize the distance between labor and capital. In their basest form, cities are pools of talent and skill. The city lives and dies by the people who populate it.

Last month, Citizens for Modern Transit released an economic impact study for the Green Line, the proposed 5.6-mile north-south expansion of the MetroLink light rail system. Its headline finding is that building the Green Line will have an overall “economic impact” of $2.9 billion.

The Forest Park–DeBaliviere MetroLink station has been problematic recently. A woman was shot and killed there on May 11th, followed by another shooting the following weekend. Local news articles quote concerned residents and commuters who are hesitant to use MetroLink in the future.