Southeast Connector Official Warns Light Rail Expansion in Suburban Areas Risks 'Field of Dreams' Fallacy

Expanding light rail into suburban communities like Elk Grove may be based more on optimism than reality, according to a regional transportation official who argues that such projects often fail without dense populations to support them.

Speaking in a recent YouTube interview (see video below), Derek Minnema, executive director of the Southeast Connector Joint Powers Authority, said the assumption that building transit infrastructure will automatically generate ridership — often referred to as the “Field of Dreams” theory — has not held up in practice.

“That is the prevailing argument,” Minnema said. “However, it has not really worked out that way.”

Minnema outlined the challenges facing mass transit systems in low-density regions, noting that successful public transportation depends heavily on having a concentrated population base. Without it, systems struggle to attract enough riders to sustain operations through fare revenue.

“Public infrastructure using public money needs to have a broad user base,” Minnema said. “If you don’t have a lot of users and there’s no revenue being generated from fares, now you’re relying on subsidies.”

The comments come as Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen and her city council, along with transportation policymakers in the Sacramento region, continue to push for the extension of Sacramento Regional Transit's Light Rail to the Sky River Casino. In Minnema's assessment, Elk Grove is not a good candidate for light rail.

Minnema described bus systems as widely unpopular, citing resistance from both residents and businesses to nearby stops, as well as concerns about crime. Light rail, he said, faces its own limitations, including slower speeds and frequent at-grade crossings with vehicle traffic.

By contrast, he pointed to heavy rail systems such as Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, as more effective due to their grade-separated design, which avoids conflicts with cars and improves reliability. Still, even those systems depend on dense urban development to succeed.

“Density is the name of the game,” Minnema said, noting that the Northeast Corridor — one of the few regions in the United States where mass transit performs well — benefits from tightly packed populations and limited room for expansion.

California’s suburban development patterns present a stark contrast, he said, making it difficult to replicate that success.

“The way we’re set up as a country, it’s just really hard to implement mass transit because there’s so many suburbs and we all live in spread-out places,” Travis Dodge, Founder at Wheelhouse Freight, Minnema's guest on the interview said.

In that context, Minnema suggested that investments in road infrastructure may offer more practical benefits for suburban regions than expanding light rail systems that lack the density needed to thrive.

His remarks highlight a broader policy debate: whether to prioritize transit-oriented development to increase density, or to focus on transportation solutions, such as the Southeast Connector road, that align with existing suburban land-use patterns.

For now, Minnema remains skeptical that building light rail in low-density areas will deliver the promised results.

“If you build it, they will come — that’s the idea,” he said. “But it hasn’t really worked out that way.”