The inspector general for California‘s high-speed rail project has an update: The project is going broke (again), is being delayed (again), and is not being transparent with the public (again).
Benjamin Belnap’s report highlighted several missing details in the project’s 2026 business plan and concluded that the project would again run out of money as early as December 2027. This after having spent $18 billion, with another $18 billion (at least) needed to finish the first segment of the line and another $90 billion to $195 billion after that to complete the promised San Francisco-to-Los Angeles line.
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On top of that, Belnap’s report noted that the project’s business plan does not acknowledge that the current segment’s completion date can be pushed back to 2034 after its most recent estimate of a 2032-33 completion, which will end up adding to the costs (again). According to Belnap, the High-Speed Rail Authority “has obscured basic facts about the project, hindering lawmakers’ ability to provide effective oversight of the project and, in so doing, creating obstacles to achieving changes it seeks that require stakeholder agreement and legislative action.”
In other words, the project is over budget and behind schedule, without a clear path forward that project leaders are able and willing to share with the public. Just the same as any other year in high-speed rail news.
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The only path forward for the high-speed rail is obvious: federal bailouts. Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee for governor who will almost certainly win in November, has promised to spend the first two years of his time in office fighting the Trump administration for federal funds to throw into the firepit. Becerra and California Democrats no doubt hope that a Democrat wins the White House in the 2028 elections (potentially even California natives Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom) and turns on the fire hose of taxpayer dollars to keep the constantly failing project afloat.
For now, the project remains on the brink of going broke again by the start of 2027, if California Democrats don’t offer another legislative Band-Aid by the end of the legislative session on Aug. 31. The train to nowhere continues its progression of burning through taxpayer dollars with little actual progress being made, fighting against the financial realities of construction under California Democrats with the hope that taxpayers across the country will once again see their money wasted alongside their California counterparts.