Passengers driving Amtrak by way of Bakersfield aren’t shopping for California’s long-delayed high-speed rail dream — with many saying the multibillion-dollar mission has already accomplished extra hurt than good.
Steve Laird, a lifelong Bakersfield resident who just lately moved to San Marcos, known as the mission pointless and deeply flawed.
“The entire premise of the high-speed prepare is improper,” Laird stated. “The way in which they take the land is improper. California land may be very costly, so I’m towards that half.”
“It’s cash misappropriated,” he added. “It’s very costly, and I don’t assume their timelines are ever going to return to fruition. This could have began years in the past. Now they’re doing it, they usually’ve gathered plenty of cash.”
Laird stated the mission has hit near house: roughly 4,000 acres of farmland his household has labored for 4 generations had been taken for the deliberate rail route.
“They constructed an enormous mound for no matter motive,” he stated. “I feel it’s going to be an overpass. We don’t know.”
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Laird stated the land had been used to develop onions, garlic, and almonds — and can not be handed right down to future generations.
“It’s simply irresponsible,” he stated. “They need to dissolve it, give the cash again to the taxpayers, and provides the landowners their land again.”
Christi Brannon, who has lived in Bakersfield for 50 years, additionally blasted Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pet mission as “ridiculous.”
“I feel it’s a joke,” Brannon stated. “It prices an excessive amount of cash for Californians. The place is it? What’s it?”
“Individuals work onerous for his or her cash, they usually don’t wish to see it squandered away on nothing,” she added. “There’s nothing to point out for it, and it’s been years.”
Longtime Bakersfield resident and enterprise proprietor Gino Valpredo, 55, who owns Luigi’s Restaurant and Delicatessen, stated the state has far larger issues than high-speed rail.
“Nobody desires to go to Bakersfield or Merced,” Valpredo stated. “There’s not going to be enterprise journey on it, and it’s not going to make the state any cash.”
“The price of it’s completely insane,” he stated.
Valpredo stated funds poured into the rail mission can be higher spent tackling California’s homelessness disaster.
“There’s no one glad about it,” he added. “The one people who find themselves glad are those taking advantage of it.”
His message to Newsom: “Simply cease now and lick your wounds.”
