In my humble opinion, if I were reviewing the report submitting to the FTA and then most recent failure of our own government to bail out The Rail.  "The city’s plan, however, remains largely incomplete because it still doesn’t answer how it intends to make up the project’s multibillion-dollar deficit, rail leaders have acknowledged."  I would come to the conclusion that the decision and management of this project is an admission of stupidity, incompetentcy or corruption?...or perhaps a combination of the aforementioned.  Hence, the FTA may be wondering if the request for help is some sort of joke.  Perhaps we can just take the lost and keep what we have as "The Rail To No Where"...we could have T-shirts made up and sold on Amazon and generate C&C revenue. :)  Just saying...