High-speed rail

Affordable housing doesn’t exist in the most populated places in The Golden State and criticizing high-speed rail as a boondoggle such as in your recent editorial isn’t going to change that. Most of the people who live in the developed world have access to HSR and considering that there are still more Californians than Canadians on earth isn’t it about time we had it too?

Merced, Bakersfield and all the other Central Valley cities not connected to the Pacific Rim have very affordable housing and ample water supplies; they’re just not close to the ocean. The price of a gallon of gasoline is already above $4.50 and burning it is doing grave damage to our environment. How much more can people take before things really start to unravel? High-speed rail solves two problems at once. Riders going north from Merced could be in San Francisco in less than one hour, and riders going from Bakersfield to Burbank would have a trip about the same length.

I don’t think we have a choice. We are not living a sustainable lifestyle. Whatever the cost is for HSR, the cost of continuing on like we’ve been doing, in the long run, will cost even more; and I don’t think that long run is still that long. I could be happy with an electric vehicle for driving locally with enough range to get to an HSR station; so where is the “Make America Great Again ” crowd when you need them? Rail travel carried this country from the end of the Civil War through World War II and you only need to build a rail line once!

— Tony Amarante, Seaside