To the editor: There’s not sufficient financial room in California for high-speed rail to compete. (“High-speed rail financial crisis could get worse under Trump,” Dec. 18)
The 2008 Proposition 1A bond measure for high-speed rail requires that rider revenues pay for working and upkeep prices. Sadly, this can by no means be so. Passenger demand will evaporate on the excessive fares wanted to get better working prices.
A prepare that has the next fare than planes and is slower than planes can’t compete with planes. Even when the prepare is accomplished, plane will nonetheless seize a big share of journey between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Vehicles will seize a big share of this similar market, as a result of California’s gasoline costs, whereas increased than elsewhere in the USA, are nonetheless decrease than different nations which have high-speed rail.
The $11 billion the Excessive-Velocity Rail Authority studies having spent to date is a sunk price. These {dollars} are gone eternally. They supply no justification for spending the extra $117 billion the authority estimates it wants to finish this undertaking, which won’t have sufficient riders to cowl its prices.
James E. Moore II, Los Angeles
The author is a professor emeritus of transportation engineering at USC.
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To the editor: Finishing California’s high-speed rail undertaking is important for our local weather, our economic system and the nation.
Air journey, by comparability, is very polluting of the ambiance. Till electric-powered air journey turns into commercially viable, the high-speed rail different can be much more protecting of the surroundings.
As your reporting demonstrates, the undertaking has supported greater than 14,000 jobs and generated $18 billion in financial advantages to deprived Central Valley communities. Furthermore, California’s instance can be adopted if the undertaking is completed.
Throughout the Civil Conflict, because the nation’s existence was imperiled, work on the primary transcontinental railroad started. Throughout the Nice Despair, when our economic system tanked, California constructed the San Francisco–Oakland Bay and Golden Gate bridges.
Hypocritically, Elon Musk, whose Tesla and SpaceX companies have obtained billions in authorities funding, now argues towards California’s high-speed rail. Completion of the undertaking is a matter of political will. What 25 different nations have performed, California will do.
Tom Osborne, Laguna Seaside
