Readers React: Admit it: There isn’t enough money for bullet-train service to L.A.

To the editor: The editorial on the viability of California’s high-speed rail system is disappointing, to say the least. (“Who is going to pay for the bullet train to L.A.?” editorial, April 17)

It is clear The Times’ editorial board is growing increasingly uncomfortable trying to justify its past support of this incredibly expensive and pathetically unsustainable investment. But isn’t now the time to admit the obvious, that there is no possibility that the High-Speed Rail Authority can manufacture a believable response to the editorial’s question, “Are the funding challenges insurmountable?”

You answer your own question: “Not necessarily.” So tell us what you have in mind.

It’s time to admit that the project cannot be funded without severely affecting the fiscal stability of the state and for The Times to stop being a co-conspirator with the authority to perpetuate the delusion that the high-speed rail project can be built within anything close to the parameters of the 2008 ballot proposition.

Norm King, Palm Springs

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To the editor: It’s time for the High-Speed Rail Authority to think outside the box.

Instead of the costly and fraught route over and through the Tehachapi and San Gabriel mountains, the route to L.A. should travel southwest from Bakersfield, through Maricopa to the Los Padres National Forest, and from there going either through the Cuyama Valley to Santa Maria and then southward with minimal tunneling, or south to Ventura through tunnels bored through sedimentary rock (and not shattered granite and fault zones).

Both would probably save money and time. Traveling on the established right-of-way through the San Fernando Valley would mean no public outcry like the one over the Palmdale-Burbank route. Along the Central Coast, revenues will increase, attracting outside investment.

This alternative makes bullet-train completion from San Francisco to Los Angeles doable.

Charles Follette, Santa Monica

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