Letters to the Editor: Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner is a relic. Rebuild and electrify it!
I want to thank all the people who took the time to write to me and to the rest of the media outlets. I want to thank you all for your help and your support.
I am particularly grateful to Steve, who found a way to send me an email when his grandmother died (he lost his dad just after his high school graduation). He was the kind of person who would understand the importance of this story.
The truth is, in this time of crisis, I felt an acute sense of relief and freedom when I discovered that Steve had put his grandmother’s name on the board in our town. I knew that I had an ally, and he is a good man.
The Pacific Surfliner, which runs between the Pacific and the Canadian border, is an important link for commuters who live in southern California, the Midwest, North California and up north. It provides a connection to the coast and the mountains, where my husband is stationed.
But it’s also an important link for people who live on both sides of the international border. Many of those people work in Los Angeles and the rest of the state, yet commute to their jobs in Canada and Mexico – or simply need a daily getaway of 2 or 3 hours. The Pacific Surfliner has become a sort of commuter railroad.
I’m not a fan of Amtrak, which has been downgraded to a glorified public bus. And I was sorry to learn that our state funding had been cut under budget. But let’s get real. Amtrak was still a viable transportation link for commuters, and that’s why it survives.
But the Pacific Surfliner is an example of an outdated rail line, a relic. It’s time to rebuild the line and get rid of it.
The Southern California commuter rail system is one of the most successful in the country. The system works because people commute to their jobs in Los Angeles. The rail line serves the Los Angeles region, which has a large, dense