52% want (CA) bullet train stopped, poll finds (LA Times)

[MADem]

72. Well, Loma Prieta wasn't back in the dark ages. And that was some major infrastructure failure.

And so was Northridge:

4:31 am January 17, 1994 the community of Northridge was hit with a devastating earthquake. The earthquake was recorded to have a magnitude of 6.7 and a ground acceleration that was said to be one of the highest in North America. In simple words this was a very powerful earthquake. It caused over 9000 injuries with 72 deaths (Northridge 2010). On the financial side, the earthquake generated over $20 billion in damage, one of the most expensive natural disasters in U.S history. On top of the cost of this disaster, buildings had to be rebuilt. Many campus buildings belonging to the California State University were heavily damaged and one parking structure collapsed. Hospitals were among the most affected buildings. Eleven hospitals were left unusable. As a result the neighboring hospitals had to take care of extra patients. As a result on January 1, 2005 all California hospitals were required to have emergency rooms that were earthquake proof structures. ...

http://failures.wikispaces.com/1994+Northridge

And more recently the Oakland Bay Bridge failed, that took four years to build a new one...

I'm not saying that California engineers are incompetent or incapable, but it's a big state and it has a lot of infrastructure and a lot of issues, unstable ground being the most talked about, followed by mudslides and fires.

It's not the lessons that have already been learned, it's the new lessons that have yet to be learned. When something goes wrong with CA infrastructure, it's rarely a cheap fix....