High Speed Dirt

California voters accepted the opportunity to spend money they don't have to build a high speed rail train. Proposition 1A. $9,900,000,000. To shuttle Southern Californians to Northern California and vice versa, in lieu of a $69 Southwest Airline flight.

I admit I voted for this if for nothing else but to force this state to move towards the most effective means of moving humans aside from bicycles-- rail. Even though I can't even take a fucking train a measly fifteen miles from Sacramento to Elk Grove because there aren't any, I voted to fund a rail network to connect people 350 miles away.

This might seem a bit odd. Why the hell should we expect that intercity rail would be more viable than intracity, where there is guaranteed ridership? Why should we fund a high speed intercity rail network when we don't even have local train service that even Uruguay provides its citizens?

Take a look at this hofbahnhof in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, a city like Elk Grove in many respects without all the autocentricty:


What would I give to be able to take an Elk Grove E-tran bus to such a station, wait no more than 15 minutes to catch a train to Sacramento.

While we'll fund a super train, our local environments are totally, completely, and utterly devoid of any train service whatsoever. Not one train stops in Elk Grove, a city of 140,000. Not one Elk Grovian has any option whatsoever other than driving her fucking car everywhere. And she does, and she constantly bitches about the price of gasoline. THREE DOLLARS? They should be hung. They should stop the conspiracy and...They should...always the ambiguous 'they.' She will never point to her own habits that contribute to high prices. She is above everyone else. She is an Elk Grove resident...she should consume as much gasoline as she feels she needs, to get anywhere she needs. She has the right...

I can't imagine living in a city with such a train station, with trains that are as accurate as a watch and as timely as what we used to have in this nation in 1929. I don't live in that world and I never will. I live in a nation full of autocentric assholes who couldn't give a rats ass about the public realm, or public transit. Perhaps my son might, with the results of a high speed train trickling down to local communities.