EDITORIAL: Not all trains have to be boondoggles

Oct. 30--California's high-speed rail system has been a slow-motion train wreck since 2008, when voters approved an initiative providing nearly $10 billion in bonds to fund a starter segment of a system to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles. An Orange County Register columnist rightly termed it "the very definition of a boondoggle."

This bullet train has been plagued with cost overruns. There's no need for it, given that Southwest Airlines already takes passengers from L.A. to the Bay Area quicker and cheaper than rail ever will.

Gov. Gavin Newsom scaled it back to focus on a segment through the San Joaquin Valley. It's a far cry, though, from the original grandiose promises.

It's time to pull the plug. But high-speed rail, like most forms of transit, is not bad per se -- provided such projects are based on their ability to cost-effectively solve transportation needs.

By contrast, this one was designed with the political motive of luring Californians out of their cars to fight against climate change. This is what happens when government ideologues, rather than transportation planners, conceive major projects.

By contrast, a proposed high-speed rail route connecting Los Angeles with Las Vegas has taken steps toward reality. A privately funded group is seeking regulatory approvals in Nevada and California. Trains could be running as early as 2023. This could address an actual traffic problem -- as anyone knows who has driven north on Interstate 15 on a Friday night.

Crowds want to go from Southern California to Vegas, which explains why the line has attracted private investment and the state plan to link Bakersfield to Merced has not.

We're not thrilled the Las Vegas project developer is seeking $800 million in tax-exempt private activity bonds, even though it's a far cry from the $68 billion-plus in direct subsidies sought by California bullet-train officials.

We'll watch how this idea progresses.

It's a reminder, though, that transit systems based on demand and funded by investors can offer real-world solutions.

Maybe our government can learn from them. At the very least, such projects are unlikely to become taxpayer sinkholes.

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