California Democrat Orchestrated High-Speed Rail Goes Way Off Track

[Incompetent Newsom]

March 24, 2023 — Ryan Lanier
When Californians voted in 2008 to provide $9.95 billion in taxpayer funds
for the construction of a high-speed rail system that they were told would
be done by 2020. Three years after the original projected completion
date, no routes have been finished. To make matters worse, the latest
cost estimate to complete just one section of the rail project, a 171-mile
stretch between Bakersfield and Merced, exceeds the original cost estimate
for the entire 800-mile project.

Since its inception, the high-speed rail project has been beset by a lack
of transparency. In 2009, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office
(LAO) released a report on the business plan for the rail system, which
was supposed to have been released before voters considered the project at
the polls. The LAO found the plan lacked important details including
information on train capacity, the point at which the project would break
even, and where funding would come from. That information likely would
have made a difference in the vote to approve the initial $9.95 billion
bond for the project.

The original plan would have connected Los Angeles to San Francisco, but
completing just the Bakersfield-Merced line will cost $35 billion, higher
than the original $33 billion budget for the entire system. Completing a
line between Los Angeles and San Francisco is now expected to cost $100
billion, three times greater than the initial projected budget for the
entire project. Of course, there is no timeline for when, if ever, a
single line of the project might be completed.

To make matters worse, and the project even more expensive, the California
High-Speed Rail Authority’s (CHSRA) February 2023 update reduced the
initial estimate of future ridership by 25 percent. The report noted,
“Public transit in California and across the nation is down,” and the
state is experiencing “more stagnant population growth” than initially
expected. With such a steep drop in anticipated ridership and continued
population abandonment from the state thanks to its high taxes and
burdensome regulations, these projections can only continue to get even
more dire.

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has reported on the multiple
failures of the project since it was first approved. A September 18,
2008, joint report by CAGW, the Reason Foundation, and the Howard Jarvis
Taxpayers Foundation noted that the project lacked “a comprehensive
financing plan.” On February 13, 2019, CAGW published a timeline
detailing the progress, or lack thereof, of the project to that point. At
the time, CAGW President Tom Schatz observed that “California’s high speed
rail fantasy quickly became a train to nowhere at taxpayer expense.” Two
years later, CAGW again reported on the failure of the project to get on
track, despite projected costs rising to $100 billion, 23 percent higher
than the $81 billion projected in CAGW’s joint report in 2008. Now, the
CHSRA estimates the entire project will cost $128 billion.

Given the state of rail travel in the United States, one could rightly
wonder what, if any, merits the project had to begin with. Long before
high-speed rail received taxpayer support in 2008, the presumptive
national passenger railroad Amtrak had been running significant deficits,
and to date has still not turned a profit. Given this history, the idea
that travelers, especially in a state that is highly dependent on
automobiles and has never had a successful or significant inter-city
public transportation system outside of the airlines, would flock to a
high-speed rail system in California was always a questionable notion.
Instead of pouring more money into a project that may never be completed,
it’s time for California to stop railroading taxpayers and end the high-
speed rail boondoggle.

California’s effort to construct a high-speed rail network was doomed from
the start. With no accountability and little transparency, it should come
as no surprise that 15 years after approval, not even one line has been
completed. The Golden State’s high-speed rail debacle should serve as a
warning to avoid pouring public funds into such transportation follies.

Blog Tags: CaliforniaHigh-Speed RailRailWaste

The WasteWatcher is the staff blog of Citizens Against Government Waste
(CAGW) and the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW). For
questions, contact bl...@cagw.org.

https://www.cagw.org/thewastewatcher/california-high-speed-rail-goes-way-
track

[Jeremy]

>origi


Another rightwing failure.