Love Donald Trump, or hate him, he knows a boondoggle when he
sees one.
This week
the State of California filed suit against the U S Department of Transportation
for withholding $1 billion in funds previously promised for California’s High
Speed Rail. The project, originally proposed to provide high-speed transportation
between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and open up inland housing markets to
the Silicon Valley work force, is now a decade behind schedule and countless
billions over budget. In fact, the last remaining remnant of the project, a 57-mile
stretch between Bakersfield and Merced, will not be operational until 2025,
will cost $77 billion (that’s $1.3 billion per mile folks), and will be
obsolete by the time, if ever, the first train leaves the station.
Now imagine
(or pretend) that it’s 2025 and the track is finished, the locomotive and
passenger cars have been loaded onto the track, the system has been tested, and
it’s ready to go. After all the dignitaries have had their pictures taken and
gone for a ride on Day 1, who is going to ride this train? Do we expect people
to take a train 165 miles from Bakersfield to Merced for a couple hundred
dollars when they can drive their car on their own schedule for twenty bucks
worth of gas? Of course not.