Comment by dibujaron

It was an enormous cost, but given that there was an elevated highway there before, I don't think "remove the highway entirely" was a real option; it'd be like trying to delete I-5 from Los Angeles. Burying it was the next best option. as part of the environmental mitigation for this, several good public transit projects were legally required to be built. Only some of them have actually been built, mostly very late and to a lower standard than was promised (e.g. bad fake BRT instead of light rail). If they actually built what they were legally required to build it would've been a huge win for transit too; as it is, it's a minor win for transit too. It's a real shame they didn't do the north-south rail connector at the same time.