California's got it going on- in a high speed rail kinda way. Albeit costly-perhaps painful- to a state that's got a broken budget to spend billions on transforming its transit infrastructure- it's a clear-smart investment in a high speed rail future- an economically stimulating move that will hopefully produce thousands of construction jobs. More important- perhaps too it will lead the way for the rest of a nation that shouldn't have to rely on planes to make trips less than 400 miles.
Imagine a day, when the nation's most densely populated cities, even on the east coast, are connected by high speed rail such as trains in Europe or Japan. That, instead of the rusty old-often unreliable infrastructure that the antiquated Amtrak system operates with today. Add to that-the money and sanity saved by not having to drive to a crowded airport-deal with the nightmare of air travel today-but instead-leave and arrive in a city core-downtown.
Sure-it's an expensive investment- but its probably just the sort of self improvement- stimulus-this nation could probably use right about now.
Cody Lyon