Spending over $45 billion dollars for bullet trains running
north to south in California seems pretty extreme. Even though it
will help travelers save time and cut carbon emissions, investing
that much money into transportation is a waste.
Bullet trains: the wave of the future or a colossal waste of time and money?
Editor’s note: These letters were penned by readers who read an editorial published in the Christian Science Monitor.
Spending over $45 billion dollars for bullet trains running north to south in California seems pretty extreme. Even though it will help travelers save time and cut carbon emissions, investing that much money into transportation is a waste.
Some of that money should go toward the economy and other important problems. Should America be spending this much money on just transportation?
Jennifer Jue, Los Altos, Calif.
Two of the necessary criteria for a successful U.S. bullet train are requiring separation of cargo and freight rail lines, and focusing the $8 billion in stimulus money on a few (or even just one) project. But there are other, equally important requirements, such as the elimination of grade crossings (which has proven marvelously successful, and safe, in Japan’s system) and the need to spend as much up front as possible in order to reduce operation and maintenance costs to affordable levels.
If we try to build high-speed rail systems on the cheap, we are going to have very expensive failures.
Dave Huntsman, Cleveland
This is an example of what some of us fear most from the Obama administration – a know-it-all government spending untold billions to impose its vision on a recalcitrant country.
Bullet trains work well in densely populated Europe and Japan, but make no sense in the US outside the Boston-New York-Washington corridor.
Elsewhere, on short hauls, getting to and from the stations will eliminate any time advantage of even the fastest train. On long hauls, people will prefer to fly.
There is no shame in buying from Europe or Japan to meet our limited need for fast trains. We have plenty of more worthwhile projects to spend our billions on.
Eric Klieber, Cleveland
