Not Everyone on Board With Calif. Rail Plan
Putting people to work in California, where unemployment is over 10 percent, is an idea behind the high-speed rail project the California legislature approved Friday. But with the state’s finances heavily in the red, not everyone is on board.
The sleek animation shows what high-speed rail travel in California could look like in 20 years or so. Trains moving at up to 220 miles an hour carrying passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in just two hours and 40 minutes.
But this optimistic vision of California’s bullet train future clashed with the reality of the state’s current budget deficit when the State Senate Friday night narrowly approved spending $ 7.9 billion on the first stage of the rail project.
Republican State Senator Tony Strickland voted against it: “This bill is spending money we just simply don’t have here in California.”
But California had to agree to put its own money into the project to get $3.3 billion in federal stimulus funds. Democratic State Senate President Darrell Steinberg struggled to get enough votes.