Read the following passage. The United States currently has high-speed r

The reading makes high-speed rail seem like a great choice for California, but it’s not! The benefits would be much less substantial than the reading suggests.
    First, it’s true that the state of California would save some money on road maintenance, but you have to compare that to the money California would have to spend on building the high-speed rail. To build the new system, the state of California might have to borrow 100 billion dollars, which is equal to 75% of all the tax income the state collects in one year. Imagine if you had to borrow an amount that’s three quarters of your yearly income. It would be pretty hard to pay back the loan. California would put itself in a similarly difficult financial situation even if it saved some money on road maintenance.
    Second, trains only reduce traffic congestion on the roads if people find taking the train more convenient than driving, but this largely depends on how convenient it is for people to access the train stations. In the East Coast cities, people can get to the rail stations easily thanks to extensive public transportation systems, but convenient public transportation is often lacking in the urban areas on the West Coast. If Californians cannot reach the stations easily, many will probably keep driving their cars instead of taking the train and the roads will stay congested.
    Third, the environmental benefits: the problem is that a new high-speed track would be built for some of the route, but not for the whole route. To make the best use of available resources, the California high-speed trains would travel on already existing regular tracks for some parts of the route, but since the regular tracks don’t allow for high-speed travel, the high-speed trains will have to slow down for parts of the route. That slowing down will make the new trains much less fuel-efficient and fuel emissions will not be reduced as much as the reading claims.