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Another money pit

Thanks to the editorial from Cascadia Rail I will be contacting my legislators to kill this Seattle-to-Spokane high-speed rail idea at once. Any taxpayer dollars spent on this are wasted. How many billions of dollars do you think this would cost? If an engineer can’t drive a train from Seattle to Portland without killing people how are they going to make it all the way to Spokane? Oh, I’m sure it will be automated. Like it could be now with Positive Train Control. Too bad we don’t think it valuable enough to implement.

For those of you who have faith in massive transportation projects being completed on time and on budget, just take a look at Spokane’s North-South Freeway. Planning for the North-South Freeway began in the late 1960s. That’s for 10.5 miles of roadway. Estimates are for it to be completed sometime between 2019 and 2027. That averages less than a quarter of a mile/year. At that rate the 280-mile train to Seattle would be done in 1,120 years.

For the record, the editorial in the March 3 Spokesman was written by Anthony Gill, who serves on the board of Cascadia Rail, a private, for-profit LLC.

Rich Zywiak

Spokane

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