At least California’s nonexistent high-speed rail loves diversity
Zachary Faria
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California’s high-speed rail probably is never going to be built, but at least the people making millions off of the fantasy really care about diversity.
The High-Speed Rail Authority took to Twitter to celebrate Pride Month and boast about how much it cares about diversity. “June is Pride Month and the High-Speed Rail Authority is proud to join Gov. [Gavin] Newsom [D-CA] and the rest of the administration to mark this occasion,” CEO Brian Kelly said. “The work doesn’t begin and end in June, but it is important that we dedicate time to celebrate the many contributions from the LGBTQ+ community.”
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In one way, Pride Month is similar to the high-speed rail project itself: The work doesn’t really begin, and the project itself will never end.
Kelly boasts about how “diversity is our strength” at the High-Speed Rail Authority. It would be much more beneficial if construction were the authority’s strength instead. In March, the estimate from the authority was that the project would be $95 billion more than the price tag that was initially sold to voters. It is decades behind schedule, and “projections widely used by engineers and project managers” show that “the train could not be completed in this century,” which means you should check back in on its progress in another 77 years.
That’s all well and good for Kelly, though. He’s paid over $350,000 every year as the project’s executive director, with his total pay and benefits topping half a million dollars. Combine that with the labor unions and developers cashing in on the state’s misguided environmentalist fantasies and it isn’t hard to see why no one is in a hurry to get to the finished project.
So yes, the California high-speed rail may be a bloated, unreasonable project that developers, unions, and bureaucrats are using to leech money from taxpayers, but at least we know the High-Speed Rail Authority cares about diversity. If only diversity could transport people from Los Angeles to San Francisco like the magic train that was promised was supposed to do.