Gov. Jerry Brown: Bullet train will keep U.S. out of Third World
Gov. Jerry Brown is on a mission to prevent the United States from becoming a Third World country, and he says the solution is a high-speed railroad in California.
“We’re not going to be a Third World country if I have anything to do with it,” Brown said in a Friday morning interview on KCBS-AM in San Francisco. Fourteen countries already have high-speed rail, but the United States does not.
California’s high-speed rail plan has come under increasing scrutiny as cost estimates rise, and the state auditor warned Tuesday that financing is “increasingly risky.” Although $12.5 billion has been secured for a rail line stretching from Los Angeles to San Francisco, the auditor said the entire project could end up costing $117.6 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $98.5 billion.
-- Chris Megerian, Los Angeles Times
Photo: An artist’s rendering of a proposed California high-speed rail station. Credit: California High-Speed Rail Authority