Despite a plethora of challenges, the Trump Administration is pushing ahead with its top-to-bottom review of government spending. It has already halted billions in what it views as wasteful spending. It now looks like one of the most wasteful, runaway public works projects in the country could be on the chopping block: California’s high-speed rail project. The project to build a bullet train from Los Angeles to Sacramento is an outrageous example of a public work that lacked any fiscal responsibility or oversight from the state government. Nevertheless, Democrats continue to push for billions more from the federal government as well as California taxpayers.
There is currently $4.3 billion in unspent federal funds for California’s high-speed rail project, and Trump should seek to claw back the money in light of the gross negligence shown by the California authorities.
The project was initially approved in 2008 with the support of Gov. Jerry Brown (D) as an environmental and technological advance for the state. It proved a costly bait-and-switch.
Voters approved a $9.95 billion bond issue in 2008 after absurdly low estimates of the projected cost. Influential figures and companies stood to make a fortune, and the key was to get a “buy-in” worth billions so that it would be more and more difficult to abandon the project as overruns and delays sent the costs soaring.
Now the official estimate of future ridership has dropped by 25% and it demands billions more to complete a project that would be delayed by decades to complete. Remember that this entire project was meant to create a rail line of only 171 miles. It is projected at over $128 billion and could ultimately come in a billion dollars a mile. There are still uncompleted environmental assessments and challenging rail lines through the mountains.
In his first term, Trump criticized the project and withheld a billion dollars in federal aid. However, when President Joe Biden came into office, he opened the federal coffers and approved billions more despite well-documented mismanagement and dubious spending.
Trump is now pledging an investigation, which is long overdue. There is ample reason to suspect fraud and other possible violations in this multi-billion dollar boondoggle.
Indeed, this week, the inspector general, Benjamin Belnap, issued a scathing report on the first phase of still uncompleted project. That is only the stretch from Merced to Bakersfield which was supposed to be completed by 2033. Belnap wrote:
“With a smaller remaining schedule envelope and the potential for significant uncertainty and risk during subsequent phases of the project, staying within the 2033 schedule envelope is unlikely. In fact, uncertainty about some parts of the project has increased as the authority has recently made decisions that deviated from the procurement and funding strategies that were part of its plans for staying on schedule.”
The Merced-Bakersfield line alone would now cost $35.3 billion, more than the 2008 projection for a complete system.
California Democrats have continued to throw money at the project without making meaningful changes on the overruns and delays. There is currently only $28.7 billion in state bonds left.
The inefficiency of the project has been raised for years. Even if completed, the system would reduce auto travel by 10 million miles a day in a state where citizens drive a billion miles a day. As noted by Cal Matters, “A 10 million-mile reduction would ostensibly cut emissions by scarcely 1%.” It added:
Logically, spending emission auction money on more direct carbon reduction programs, such as reducing emission-spewing wildfires, would make more sense.
The current estimate for linking San Francisco with Southern California is $107 billion. Officials don’t even know how to fully finance Merced-Bakersfield, much less raise the other $72.4 billion they would need.
Both a federal investigation and a cessation of funding are long overdue. It is time to bite the bullet. California has every right to spend over $100 billion during budget deficits, but the rest of the country should not subsidize it.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
The story I heard way back when is the unions were pissed that China got the fabrication contract for the SF Bay Bridge surface spans. The unions did get the construction assembly contract as a payback, but they were still shorted the big bucks due to China. This led Gov. Jerry Brown, Jr. to approve the Bullet Train that became what is known as a union retirement project* that would age out (i.e. retire) virtually every union worker who lost wages due to missing out on the fabrication project.
* big union jobs are called retirement projects because union workers are often full time, and retire with fat pensions before the job is completed.
Not one comment here today acknowledging Mother Nature.
Early critics of this project 20 years ago were writing Op-ed pieces about the San Andreas Fault and the numerous other fault-lines, and that even just a nominally ‘small’ quake could damage or destroy portions of this project —- the folks at Cal-tech (the earthquake specialists) spoke about the inevitability of quake activity over a 20 to 40 year period, not to mention ‘the BIG ONE.
And then there’s the environmental damage — how many species have been harmed since this thing began construction?
Its not an issue.
You have to understand the design and safety features…
The real issue is the lack of ridership and value.
If you look at the population who actually use the rail system… its along the dense east coast.
Trying to build a high speed rail there would be too costly.
Its the cost of acquiring the land. That’s the first hurdle.
Then its a question of which cities to have in place. Boston, direct to NY to DC? 3 cities that generate a lot of traffic sure.
Even redesigning the existing lines… not really feasible.
If you wanted a high speed rail PoC the midwest makes sense except that you won’t get the ridership to justify the cost.
Chicago to Detroit to Cleveland would be one possible rail.
Cleveland to Columbus to Cincy? Another.
Chicago to St Louis? Again possible.
But still lack of riders would make it a losing proposition.
-G
I looked at the numbers when this project showed up on my ballot. (I voted No!) To reach the rider revenue that they proponents were projecting, every resident of all ages would have to take one round trip from Sacramento to LA a year. I also took a brief look at construction costs in comparison with other high speed rail systems. The projected construction costs for the entire system were obviously low-balled.
I have taken the liberty of forwarding Professor Turley’s post to the DOGE team with a strong urging that they immediately start action to claw back all remaining Federal funds.
Yeah, even the cleveland to Columbus to,Cinci didn’t fly in Ohio.
Travel time was too long( it was not going to be high speed) and the city stations dont have good public transportation once you get there.
For time and convenience and $ a car beat out a train.
Cleveland to Chicago exists and Cleveland to NYC exists but the timetable has the trains arriving departing at untenable times in the early morning hours .
These trains are almost always late as freight trains have the right of way on the same tracks .
Europe on the other hand has wonderful train systems with good public transportation once you get to your destination.
@Maplady…
I’m familiar w the CCC (Cle,Col,Cin) pipe dream.
The point was that you have enough potential traffic to make the connections warranted and even without public transit… you have uber.
So there’s that.
As to Chicago to Cleveland rail… its not high speed.
Suppose you’re looking at 200mph speeds.
If you could go flat out… It would be 1 1/2 hour commute between CHI to CLE.
Flight time would be 45min vs 5 1/2 – 6 hour drive. (construction, weather, and toll plaza backups. plus traffic getting into the city of Chicago …)
So if there were enough reasons… it would make sense. Maybe a stop by Notre Dame in IN so the trip is longer but then ND to Chi and / or Cle makes sense. (Clevelands RTA isn’t that bad in terms of routes. ) [Granted its been 40 yrs since I last took it]
The issue is that in the US… we have air travel with a hub/spoke model. Kinda kills high speed rail outside of the dense population on the northeast coast.
-G
Shifting the rail bed by even inches with train speeds of 200 mph could be interesting for Pax
Please Mr. Trump! It’s time to put the bullet train, and us Californians paying for it, out of our collective misery!
And this represents the STUPIDITY of the UNIPARTY! Both Repub and Dem Californicator Politicians will lobby to keep this garbage construction project to NOWHERE online and feeding cash into a Contractor Bonfire! At some point Common Sense has to prevail and explain to the Fruits Nuts and Berries that they will need to get the money from Cali Taxpayers if they want to finish this Boondoggle!
don’t you dare lump California Republicans into the corrupt democrat disasters. people need to forget the comfort of blandly blaming both parties when the democrats are cooties from the Devil’s bunghole.
Approved in 2008. Now “. . . staying within the 2033 [*first phase*] schedule envelope is unlikely.”
That’s *25* years, with no completion in site. (The Empire State Building took about 13 months.)
From an estimated cost of some $10 billion to now “over $128 billion.”
That’s a massive increase of $118 billion, with no end in site.
Yet D’s want those same irresponsible, incompetent bureaucrats (federal and state) to spend our money and to run our government.
Then they squeal when a brave soul says: Wait a minute. Those emperors are naked.
I know somebody who worked on the project in Fresno. This person worked for several years as a laborer in the 70’s while getting their undergraduate degree. By the time they worked on the high speed rail project they had an MBA and JD. It wasn’t hard for them to spot the waste and corruption both locally and in Sacramento.
The California High Speed Line Project is going just fine and dandy, although, perhaps, a little more fine than dandy. It should be fully operational in the year 2047 after total expenditures of $658 billion (plus or minus $175 billion). Obviously CA will need more money to complete the project and Newsom has privately said that those funds can be achieved by a combination of a 17% surtax on those earning more than $10,000 a year, slashing what few services CA does provide, and through several rounds of bond offerings.
Gavin Newsom and Ray Epps in 2028! Only they can save America. In your heart, you know I’m right.
Congress certainly has a role to play in this fiasco.
With the new Transportation Secretary, I would assume all these projects are on the table for review. Austin, Texas has plans for the restitution of light-rail in the city with some elements of the project rectifying what the previous Transportation Secretary called “racist highways.” This expensive and thoroughly useless enterprise that will not achieve any improvements in traffic management or reducing congesting. In fact, it will achieve the opposite. The City duped the population into a tax increase of 25% to fund the local share for these projects. The money has been piling up while no progress has been made on advancing the grandiose plans. Stop the insanity.
“Fundamentally transform” the bullet train into the bullet pipeline transporting water from Great Bear Lake, Canada, to California.
Or a circus ride
How can California afford a bullet train when they have no water for their fire hydrants?
# Redirect the 4.3 billion to LA fire. It can be ripped off from there. Payola and kickbacks should leave 2.25 cents.
Free speech is either moral or immoral or amoral perhaps. Obviously moral speech wins ultimately or morality wouldn’t exist at all. More bang for your buck.
The losers are known before the fight begins…
No, there are 362 miles from LA to Sacramento and rather moe driving on I5.
Yes, this is an outrargeously expensive hi-speed train track for what was originally supposed to be LA to SF.
And, of course, it is no longer going to be high speed. They settled on a mixed track model that means slow and go through many miles of urban, suburban development so that the final transit time from SF to LA would be on the order of 4–5 hours. I think it takes about 45 minutes to fly. BS train/money pit. Kill it now. It’s textbook sunk cost fallacy in action.