Willow Glen Resident

Letters & Opinions

Speak Out

Diridon is off-track with talk of rail

This letter is in response to Supervisor Rod Diridon's April 5 opinion piece ("We Can't Wait Much for High-speed Railroad"). I have personal knowledge of some of Diridon's assumptions on establishing the VTA light rail system in my role as a company representative to the forerunner of today's Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

In the 1980s, Diridon promoted a light-rail transit system for Santa Clara County. He argued that the system would have strong commuter traffic all along the route--for jobs in downtown San Jose, N. First Street and at both ends of the line (Great America and IBM at that time). He also "hoped" that major employers near the Great America terminus would provide shuttle buses to take employees to and from work. Experience proved otherwise to taxpayers' detriment.

Now he writes that a taxpayer-funded electrically powered high-speed rail system between San Jose and Los Angeles, will "...give a less expensive, cleaner, quieter, safer and faster downtown-to-downtown alternative...than either airline or auto travel." Best of all, profits, net of operating and maintenance costs could be greater than 50 percent. History shows that rail transit systems, like BART, Amtrac and VTA, are all financial drains on the taxpayers, so why should we believe these rosy predictions? Diridon also writes that a $9.95 billion general obligation bond slated for the 2004 ballot would not have resulted in a tax increase! This is true only if existing services are cut in order to make principal and interest payments to bondholders. Lastly, Diridon states that only the U.S. is unwilling to sign the Kyoto Accord; but he fails to mention that a major reason is that China and India, two major polluters, are exempt from the Accord's greenhouse gases cutback or that the Europeans are failing to meet their reduction goals.

Jerry Mungai

San Jose