Rod Diridon Sr., the longtime Santa Clara County political figure widely known as the "father of modern transit" in the South Bay, has died at 87.

Love him or not, Diridon left a mark on Bay Area infrastructure that's hard to ignore. Over decades of public service — including five terms on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors — he championed the expansion of transit systems across the South Bay, helping bring light rail, Caltrain improvements, and highway expansions to a region that was rapidly outgrowing its mid-century infrastructure. His name literally adorns the main transit hub in downtown San Jose: Diridon Station, the very facility now at the center of Google's massive planned development.

Here's where it gets complicated for liberty-minded folks like us. Diridon was a big-government transit guy in an era when big-government transit projects often meant ballooning budgets and underwhelming results. BART's extension into San Jose — a project Diridon championed for years — has become a poster child for cost overruns, with its price tag swelling past $12 billion. The broader legacy of Bay Area transit planning is one of ambitious promises meeting bureaucratic reality, and Diridon was at the center of that tension for decades.

But here's the thing: the man showed up. He spent a career actually trying to solve the problem of moving people around one of the fastest-growing regions in America. You can disagree with his methods — and we often would — while still respecting the commitment. He wasn't a grifter padding a résumé; he was a true believer who dedicated his life to public infrastructure at a time when Silicon Valley was transforming from orchards into the economic engine of the world.

Whether Diridon Station eventually becomes the gleaming multimodal hub its namesake envisioned or just another monument to Bay Area cost overruns remains to be seen. But the man behind the name? He earned it.

Rest in peace, Rod.