Jan. 1, 2026 7 AM PT
To the editor: The assertion by a California Excessive-Pace Rail Authority spokesperson on this article actually caught my consideration (“California drops lawsuit seeking to reinstate federal funding for the state’s bullet train,” Dec. 28). “Shifting ahead with out the Trump administration’s involvement permits the Authority to pursue confirmed international finest practices used efficiently by fashionable high-speed rail programs around the globe,” it learn.
Actually? The undertaking is years delayed and billions of dollars over funds. That’s the results of erratic help from the Trump administration?
The second a part of that authority’s assertion is a doozy. Solely now will it’s potential to “pursue confirmed international finest practices”? Why couldn’t these practices be pursued in previous years?
The undertaking was approved in 2008. I had excessive hopes again then. But right here we’re 17 years on with nearly nothing to point out for no matter effort has been expended in all that point. I’ve to marvel how a number of European nations (to not point out Japan) have efficiently constructed high-speed rail traces. What did they do proper that we are able to’t replicate?
Our bullet prepare undertaking jogs my memory of the Gravina Island Bridge in Alaska — a.okay.a. the “Bridge to Nowhere.”
Martin Parker, Thousand Oaks
