To the editor: The assertion by a California Excessive-Pace Rail Authority spokesperson on this article actually caught my consideration (“California drops lawsuit looking for to reinstate federal funding for the state’s bullet prepare,” Dec. 28). “Shifting ahead with out the Trump administration’s involvement permits the Authority to pursue confirmed world greatest practices used efficiently by trendy high-speed rail methods world wide,” it learn.
Actually? The challenge is years delayed and billions of {dollars} over price range. That’s the results of erratic assist 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 world greatest practices”? Why couldn’t these practices be pursued in previous years?
The challenge was licensed in 2008. I had excessive hopes again then. But right here we’re 17 years on with virtually nothing to indicate for no matter effort has been expended in all that point. I’ve to surprise how a number of European international locations (to not point out Japan) have efficiently constructed high-speed rail strains. What did they do proper that we will’t replicate?
Our bullet prepare challenge jogs my memory of the Gravina Island Bridge in Alaska — a.okay.a. the “Bridge to Nowhere.”
Martin Parker, Thousand Oaks
