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 may by no means be so. Passenger demand will evaporate on the excessive fares wanted to recuperate working prices.
A practice that has the next fare than planes and is slower than planes can’t compete with planes. Even when the practice 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 US, are nonetheless decrease than different international locations which have high-speed rail.
The $11 billion the Excessive-Pace Rail Authority studies having spent thus far is a sunk price. These {dollars} are gone ceaselessly. They supply no justification for spending the extra $117 billion the authority estimates it wants to finish this mission, 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 mission is important for our local weather, our financial system and the nation.
Air journey, by comparability, is extremely polluting of the environment. Till electric-powered air journey turns into commercially viable, the high-speed rail different will probably be way more protecting of the surroundings.
As your reporting demonstrates, the mission has supported greater than 14,000 jobs and generated $18 billion in financial advantages to deprived Central Valley communities. Furthermore, California’s instance will probably be adopted if the mission is completed.
Through the Civil Warfare, because the nation’s existence was imperiled, work on the primary transcontinental railroad started. Through the Nice Melancholy, when our financial system tanked, California constructed the San Francisco–Oakland Bay and Golden Gate bridges.
Hypocritically, Elon Musk, whose Tesla and SpaceX companies have acquired billions in authorities funding, now argues towards California’s high-speed rail. Completion of the mission is a matter of political will. What 25 different nations have executed, California will do.
Tom Osborne, Laguna Seaside
