SACRAMENTO -- For a quarter century it has been a California dream on one drafting board or another -- a bullet train system so novel, environmentally friendly and fleet that it could reshape transportation in the car-crazy Golden State.Now, state voters will be asked Nov. 4 to provide some locomotion by approving nearly $10 billion as a down payment toward the ultimate vision of an 800-mile high-speed rail network.
Promoters of Proposition 1A boast that the $45-billion project, featuring sleek trains reaching 220 mph, would be the nation's most ambitious public works effort since completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869.
Foes say it would be a fiscal black hole that wouldn't deliver as promised.
With gas prices high, highways congested and airports jammed, it would seem the best of times for a bullet train.
But to some it seems the worst, with Wall Street in meltdown, California facing a perpetual budget deficit and the lurking specter of last month's horrific Metrolink commuter rail accident.
Past surveys have found that as many as two of three California residents support a bullet train. A poll in July found 56% support for financing the project this year.
But that was before the big problems hit.
"After all the crashes -- the train crash and the market crash -- supporters may have a lot more trouble than they anticipated," said Richard Tolmach, president of the nonprofit California Rail Foundation, a Proposition 1A foe.
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