Point of View: An update on the bullet train to nowhere

LOS ANGELES, CA (FOX 11 / Editorial) - The bullet train to nowhere is one gigantic boondoggle that is a bigtime taxpayer rip-off. The first leg of Governor Brown's choo-choo train was supposed to cost 6.8 billion and go from Madera to Shafter.
Now the cost has ballooned to an astounding 9 billion. For what? To ride from Madera to Shafter? Definitely not worth it.

Worse yet, that cost of $9 billion is more than half of all the money the rail authority has available. So what do they expect to build with that. The price to actually finish the project from Los Angeles to San Francisco is $77 billion and rising. At this point that is impossible with the funds available. There is simply not enough money to buy the land required or pay for the very costly and impractical mountain drilling.

Further rail officials have produced no credible evidence that they can get any private money. In addition, Congress has made it clear no more federal money will be forthcoming. Also the rail authority is depending on unstable cap and trade funds that are extremely inconsistent. Clearly, this ability to fund is just fantasy.

Yet construction goes on. To what end? To ride the train from Madera to Shafter? What a joke. Why spend the rail billions that are left for nothing?

Governor Brown please put an end to the failed bullet train project. Enough is enough.
We have other issues in this state that are far more important and desperately in need of funding.

Thanks for listening.
I'd like to hear your Point of View. Email me directly at FOX11POV@foxtv.com.

Bob Cook
VP/GM FOX 11 News

The views expressed are not necessarily those of the station or its employees.