The voters asked for self-sufficient high speed rail, not
taxpayer subsidized transportation requiring hundreds of billions
for construction, and billions annually for operations, like a
super-sized Amtrak.
Dear Editor,
The voters asked for self-sufficient high speed rail, not taxpayer subsidized transportation requiring hundreds of billions for construction, and billions annually for operations, like a super-sized Amtrak. Shifting the financial burdens from the state to local governments to build and operate this Frankenstein will be worse than if they forced local government to pay for Amtrak and Caltrain and VTA Lite Rail boondoggles combined by factors of 10.
I told the High Speed Rail Commission 10 years ago how they ought to do high speed rail in California – same way we did rail originally by combining profitable freight revenue with losing passenger fares. No. They insist on doing it like a humongous Amtrak. Good for the contractors and employees of the High Speed Boondoggle, but it’s an anvil and an albatross around taxpayer’s necks.
As I said before the Assembly Transportation Committee in Sacramento in hearings last spring on AB-2121, high speed rail isn’t profitable anywhere on Earth – not in France, Japan, Germany or China. California’s taxpayers cannot afford the governmental burdens their boondoggles have already saddled us with. We certainly cannot afford the Biggest Boondoggle in state history.
Amtrak, Caltrain, VTA Lite Rail, etc., are all big time losers. UPRR won’t let CAHSRA on, over or under its property, so they cannot run HSR up the San Francisco peninsula.
As Norm Mineta said in 1996: “The crucial question in transportation today is: What should government do, and what should it leave to others?” The best answer to Secretary Mineta’s “crucial question” is less government, more private sector, in all modes.
Joseph P. Thompson, Gilroy
