and yet California can't get their mass transit act together.
Yes, I agree, but not for lack of trying.
As
@kenmbz pointed out, it isn't as easy in California or the West generally to do it, distance being one item, dispersed populations another, and let's not forget earthquake faults that complicate routes and engineering.
Also, not to overlook the obvious, but acquiring property for transit routes is expensive, as in very expensive.
There is some, small, progress being made with more high density housing adjacent to public transit, something that should have been done decades ago, but good old NIMBY intervened.
Having lived for a while in a dense city with excellent public transit, I'd love it. By excellent, I mean that the subway schedule had the arrival times down to every one minute and two seconds. It completely changed my mental map, as I knew that I could always get a train or a bus within a minute or two, but to be cost effective, that requires high population density, something not common in the US.
FWIW: I have never seen an even a backup generator on wind farms, much less each windmill. Every wind alternator/generator that I have seen is self exciting. It is kind of a basic "cold start/bootstrap" requirement. That there might be wind generators that might need deicing, possibly, but I'd have to bet on that being a more common offshore item, though, I haven't seen photos of that either.
All the best,
Peter