High-Speed Rail? Don't need it.

It's been a while since I wrote. I went on vacation. I moved. I sat on my ass a little in there too. But, now I'm back and writing again. I thought I'd do something a little different, with the election just a week away. I'm not going to endorse any of the presidential candidates. Neither Obama nor McCain are good candidates for the office of President, and I just can't bring myself to publicly endorse either of them. What I'm going to do is break away from the fortnightly column, and instead post a few articles over the next week about some of the referendums on the California ballot. I will start with Proposition 1A.

Proposition 1A is a bond measure to raise funds to build a high-speed rail line in California. The first phase will connect Los Angeles and San Francisco. The measure calls for a bond worth about $10 billion. The project is estimated to cost around $50 billion, but it is more likely we are looking at $90 billion. This bond measure would, therefore, cover about eleven percent of the cost of the project. The remaining eighty-nine percent of project funds are supposed to come from federal and private sources. None of these funds have been secured at this time. The project is open to the same brand of cost overruns that have plagued the Bay Bridge replacement.

Supporters of Proposition 1A say that a high-speed rail line will create jobs and fix some of California's woes in terms of congested transportation corridors. The supporters who wrote the arguments for Proposition 1A in the voter information booklet say that with high-speed rail, we could get to LA from San Francisco in two and a half hours for $50. Southwest Airlines can do it in one hour for $60. The road from LA to San Francisco is only congested on the ends. Traffic only gets really bad on Interstate 5 on major holidays or when there's a horrific accident. Getting between LA and San Francisco is not the problem. The problem is getting between Oakland and San Francisco, or Long Beach and Hollywood.

I think a high-speed rail line is a great idea. I would love to make that trip. It would make California look that much cooler to the rest of the world. But this state has worse transportation problems that need to bee addressed before we start fixing something that isn't broken. $10 billion could be better spent fixing and widening freeways, enhancing regional transit so we aren't so reliant on our cars, and reducing congestion where it occurs.