James Lileks aims his wit at California’s “hypersonic choo-choo” in the latest print edition of National Review. Lileks says the idea refuses to die, though “locals are starting to question the wisdom of spending a tenth of a trillion on the project.”
The government is behind it. The unions are behind it. People who believe there is a direct relationship between the number of cars that drive to Sacramento and a polar bear drowning in 2027 A.D. are behind it. The only thing that could stop the train is the discovery that it endangers gay brine shrimp, but even then they’d just go 30 miles around the pond and call the route the Diversity Bend. Like many ideas from the first few decades of the previous century, trains are perfectly progressive. There’s no individual decision on direction or duration, no competition, no penalty for poor performance, and the money to run the thing is exacted from the unwilling by the force of the state. If that’s not enlightenment, what is?
