Ok, so I’m about a month too late on voicing my opinion about this.  Driving into work this morning I realized how ridiculous this is and how upset it makes me.  I don’t know the nitty gritty details on this proposition, so I’m going to assume a few things.  I know that assuming can make an “ASS out of U and ME”… but anyway:

1. Trains aren’t free
2. The money is coming from our pockets

So at the moment, are there no ways to get to LA?  From what I can recall, one can get to LA by car, bus, plane, and Amtrak.  Do we really need another means to get there??  If it was something like a bullet train to Hawaii, than I will be all over it…. but LA? Really?  How often is someone going to be taking that train to LA?  I’m gonna assume about 80% will be using it once or twice annually.  The bullet train from Paris to London is about $250 r/t (283 miles between them).  San Francisco to LA is about a hundred more miles compared to London and Paris.  If these numbers are consistent, that would mean that the cost would be roughly the same.

Having a train that goes to SF to LA sounds great, don’t get me wrong.  But money has to come from somewhere.  According to the estimates, building such a thing will cost us 45 billion dollars.  I would much rather see the money go towards the state’s education system and helping out lower income families trying to get back on their feet.  Teachers are struggling to get by and spending hundreds of dollars out of their own pocket a month to give their kids a better learning experience while a mother with two kids, a full time job, and a dead beat husband is struggling to make the rent each month.

But fuck yeah!!! We’re getting a train to LA!! Fuck everyone else!!  That was sarcasm by the way…  This is the type of stuff that gets me sick.