There's huge parts of the country where government at every level is regarded as corrupt and dysfunctional.

When a higher authority (fed > state > town > individual departments > subgroup within a dept.) has to tell the offending institution to step in line it's usually very welcome. People being screwed tend to place their trust in the other parts of the government stack (the parts that haven't screwed them yet).

Bay Area housing and transport problems can only be solved at a metropolitan level. Compare to New York and London which have political bodies covering the majority of their metropolitan areas. This enables them override the nimbyism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies of most Bay Area municipalities.

Frankly, expectations for what government can achieve just seem far too low here. California seems constitutionally hobbled.