California's $43 Billion Bullet Train Will Go To ... Bakersfield?
The Weekly's Jill Stewart noted this week that California's planned high-speed rail line's "route to nowhere" now has a route to ... somewhere -- but not here, or San Francisco, or San Diego, or pretty much anywhere a vast majority of California's population resides or would want to go.
A bullet train, German-style.
No, the $43-billion-and-counting train will go to beautiful Bakersfield.
Because when you think bullet train (Tokyo to Kyoto, Frankfurt to Berlin) and California, you think Borden to Bakersfield. Yeah. Zippy and moderne. Bakersfield.
Our commenter of the day, onetime L.A. mayoral candidate Walter Moore, pretty much says WTF:
... It makes zero sense to build a bullet train in California, where Southwest will fly you from LA to San Francisco for $59.You know how many of those airline tickets you could buy for $43 billion? That's right: over 728 million tickets. That's over 364 million round trips.
So why are we taxing ourselves to build this thing? Does anyone really want to go to Bakersfield?
Walter, we seriously enjoy flying over Bakersfield. But taking a train there, yeah -- that might be too much to ask of Angelenos. For $43 billion, what this market really desires is a bullet train, complete with wine tastings and sustainable-food dining cars, to Napa Valley.
There, we said it.
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print Article
