I mean there’s a decent case that BART hasn’t been managed very well. I’m a big supporter of public transit but I worry that there won’t be enough oversight for this money.

Is it really accurate to characterize funding for a public utility or service as a bailout?

No, it’s not. Consider: We don’t refer to highway funding as “bailing out” the automobile industry, for instance; even though the automobile industry couldn’t very well sell very many cars if there weren’t highways to drive them on.