California Voters Approve New Spending for Roads and Rails
“Transportation Gears Up for Revival” (Part A, June 7) explains at once the sorry state of California transportation and why the future will even be worse.
At a press conference, Caltrans admitted to having only vague plans about rail transit beyond the conclusion that “. . . rail transit in the San Joaquin Valley is a high priority” and that Caltrans will hire additional consultants. But the voters clearly indicated with the passage of Props. 108, 111 and 116 that more is not better when it comes to building roads and freeways; rather, it is high time to break the auto monopoly that seems to have reached a point of diminishing returns.
Caltrans should have been called “Calroads,” because it did very well with the world’s best personal door-to-door transport system. But a new set of urban realities (population density, regionalism, environmental and energy concerns, and auto saturation) calls for the creation of a new agency--”Calrails”--to complete California’s comprehensive circulation system with the missing link: for example, a Southern California intercity rail system, using the airspace over freeway medians and over railroad right of ways.
An elevated rail system would cost a fraction of the localized L.A. Metro Rail, and therefore could be a regionwide installation responding to congestion. Let’s plan and construct an advanced rail system that would be a challenge for Southern California aerospace companies in transition to a “post-Cold War” product range.
PETER GRUBBAUER
Culver City
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