Letter to the Editor:
Because of financial limitations, the State of California may never complete California’s High-Speed Railway linking San Francisco-Sacramento-Los
Yet, Burbankers have watched as our City spent time and money propagandizing the costly transportation infrastructure dominated by State authorities in Sacramento. All that effort now seems to have been for naught.
Meaning, Burbank remains penned in by several smog-emitting freeways and a flash-flooding Los Angeles River.
However, that’s nothing new. By 1955 General Motors demonstrated its beautiful “Aerotrain” when it passed over the Cajon Pass. (The LWT-1200 locomotive was underpowered to achieve that summit so the train was assisted by another, regular, diesel engine locomotive.)
Since the Las Vegas Station site was opened for construction on 22 April 2024, the Brightline West railway has commenced. It will terminate at Rancho Cucamonga, CA.
Now, the problem arises for the City Council: how will it recoup the taxpayer-funded planning done for the State’s boondoggle? So far, silence on this topic prevails. Burbankers have witness $1.5 billion spent to upgrade the airport, which won’t be equipped with an expensively bored underground railway station. How much money was invested fruitlessly in planning for the airport? Who knows? Planning myopia is way too common in our City.
Richard B. Cathcart
Burbank
Burbank
