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

[Xithras]

108. For the cost of the HSR, which will serve tourists and business travellers....

...we could build comprehensive mass transit systems in every small and midsized city in California. HSR is a distracting toy that redirects potential funds from useful mass transit alternatives to a shiny bauble for the business classes and vacationers. With $160 per person tickets and routes that deliberately avoid traffic dense areas, this isn't something that many Californian's are going to find useful. It's own designers have already admitted that it wasn't designed to remove cars from the road. It is intended to be competition for the airlines. It will get San Francisco vacationers to Disneyland faster while the masses are still stuck driving to work on their gridlocked roadways sucking smog heavy air.

Build comprehensive urban-to-suburban transit solutions FIRST. Get the workers OUT of their cars, and onto trains. THEN build a high speed through-system to connect it all. This is how every successful major rail system on the planet has been built, and it's a model that California is completely ignoring.

When I'm stuck in traffic driving to work every morning because my city doesn't have a transport system capable of getting me across a 10 mile wide town in under 2 hours, the LAST thing I want my state doing is spending $100 billion tax dollars spent on a high speed train to Disneyland.