California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco

[haele]

2. We do need to have transportation other than air between the major cities.

This particular project requires overhaul - mainly because of the insistence that industry will do build it in a more cost effective manner when businesses are required to make a profit.
Affordable mass transit is never profitable. Real public infrastructure - "the commons" everyone is supposed to have access to - is not profitable. And I'm always a bit sad when people talk about public boondoggles because these projects are not going to be profitable, but yet, the prevailing policy always pretends that an honest business out there is going to actually compete to do all the work the public wants for infrastructure projects - for nothing more than "cost".

But nonetheless, we do need some form of reliable mass transit between SD, LA and SF, the major Californian commercial hubs other than our environmentally unstable and aging air fleet, and we also need something that is better than 1950's infrastructure, which is what we have now.

High Speed Rail will be the optimal mass transportation method between LA and SF - if done correctly. Unfortunately, done correctly is not profitable now, is it?

SD and LA can make due for now with expanding MetroLink and MTS rail service through the I-5 and I-15 corridors.

On Edit - I fully expect any public infrastructure project will require government subsidies to maintain. That's always been the case, so I don't know why this would be unexpected...

Haele

(Long time San Diego resident, stationed in both the Bay area and LA area back in the day)