By The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board in The San Diego Union Tribune

February 1, 2016

There have been many daunting questions raised by the media’s coverage of the state’s $68 billion bullet train project. Can the project legally be built, given the tough restrictions imposed by Proposition 1A, the successful 2008 ballot measure providing $9.95 billion in state bonds as seed money for the rail system? How will construction change communities, starting with farmlands in central California and residential neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley? Is it even possible for a high-speed rail system to get passengers from downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles in two hours and 40 minutes, as guaranteed in Proposition 1A, given that there won’t be true high-speed rail at the northern and southern ends of the project?

Unfortunately, Gov. Jerry Brown likes to dismiss these questions as the quibbles of small-minded “declinists” who don’t share his vision of California’s greatness. But as initial construction ramps up in the Central Valley, we hope the governor takes the questions raised by an official government entity with the seriousness they deserve.

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