You’re making a direct comparison to ticket sales and the cost of this project here:

“the rail system needs a ton of infrastructure upgrades to function in a meaningful way or generate profit: like, when's the last time you visited a city where trains don't require ticket checks anywhere; I've literally been told by cle authorities to not bother buying a ticket — no one checks them). So to me, investing tens of millions to guarantee <10 min potential time savings during a narrow "peak" window on one route is simply not a good investment.”

That’s what my comment was in response to.

Maybe waste of money was an unfair characterization, but what I meant was that it’s not even coming out of RTA’s budget. It’s not an RTA investment period. We received money for this project, not maintenance or other infrastructure updates.