Prop 1A

I neglected in my ballot summary to write about Proposition 1A which would authorize almost ten billion dollars in bonds to begin building a high speed rail transportation system. It would allow studies and right of way purchases to continue the work on this novel form of transportation. In the end the system might cost as much as $50 billion, so this is the first bite at the apple. High speed in this case means a bit more than 200 miles per hour. I've ridden on high speed trains in Europe and Japan and they are very comfortable.

I really like the idea of having high speed trains. It is an exciting idea. As air travel gets more and more complicated a connection that would allow you to go from San Francisco to LA in a reasonable amount of time sounds great.

But there is another side to the story. The measure would saddle the state with almost $650 million in annual debt service for the next thirty years. To put that in perspective, that number would almost wipe out the total amount of funding provided to students in grants to attend college.

I am concerned about the amount of debt the state has taken on in recent years. There are several measures on the ballot that would increase those totals substantially. In this year, I will vote NO on the measure even though the idea is an interesting one.