I don't think you're wrong. Every time someone says we can't do high speed rail it makes me very sad. And as far as Seattle goes... my commute is substantially affected by the I-5 closures. It's somewhat shocking to me that we allow infrastructure to decay as much as we do.
I'd be happy about the light rail expansion if they weren't talking about delaying the Ballard line indefinitely. :(
Can't do highspeed rail because it's too impractical and expensive, while we're spending a west coast highspeed rail network worth of money on the least popular war in US history.
There are no environmental impact studies on wildlife when you drop a bomb.
California is spending the money and what they're building is useless (oh big passenger demand from Merced to Bakersfield, fuck right off with that) and costs 10x what China, France, Japan, etc pay.
The commute is slow because the light rail is slow. It's the wrong technology for commuter rail and there are too many stops. (I'm assuming you live north).
(more details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47457884)
My commute is via car. The light rail will not speed it up, but I may do it anyhow because it's more relaxing.
My point is that closing two lanes of the interstate for over a year is a failure of maintenance, rather than anything about light rail vs. driving.
Evidently tax cuts for the wealthy are more important than infrastructure.