The good news is, after generations of crisis and struggle, the Seattle area finally has a pretty good light rail transit system up and running. I say this because transit advocates held a satirical funeral for the project’s future this past week, complete with a coffin carried through downtown streets. They were protesting a decision to effectively cut an expansion line to Ballard, because it’s now catastrophically over budget. The overall vibe of mourning was apt. It feels like Seattle’s light rail arc is in its twilight years. Or possibly is mostly over, except for the gnashing and weeping. What happened this past week is the agency that runs the trains, Sound Transit, took its first crack at closing a $35 billion budget gap . That is a massive, unprecedented overrun, given the total cost of the agency’s “ST3” expansion was supposed to come in around $54 billion, and none of it has been built yet. The budgets for building some of the lines have more than tripled.…