The California High-Speed Rail Authority issued a project update for the first time in two years. It’s hard to believe, but the update was more bad news for California‘s biggest boondoggle.
The project’s focus has been the Merced-Bakersfield line, which has, of course, ballooned in costs and had its deadline pushed back years. The Central Valley section of the line now has the optimistic operation date of 2032, two years later than the 2030 deadline that was the target as of just a few months ago. (That was changed from 2029 a few years ago, as the deadline keeps getting pushed back.)
The update also showed that the plan may no longer include a Merced-Bakersfield line. Merced could be cut out in favor of Gilroy, meaning that Merced officials have wasted years planning for a project that may no longer include their city. Merced businesses were already forced to relocate to make space for the line to cut through their city. However, the High-Speed Rail Authority determined that Merced wouldn’t help the project make any money once the line theoretically opened, with low estimated ridership numbers that wouldn’t justify the money that would need to be spent on maintenance.
According to rail authorities, the new Gilroy-Palmdale line would cost $87 billion and be operational by 2038. The stretch is around 130 miles longer than the proposed Merced-Bakersfield line, which has a funding gap that has grown to $8.6 billion. So, not only would the plan change at the last minute, but it would also change to an even larger project when California doesn’t have the money to come close to completing the shorter version it is abandoning.
TRUMP SEVERS FUNDING FOR ‘DISASTROUSLY OVERPRICED’ CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL PROJECT
To recap, the original plan was a line from San Francisco to Los Angeles (around 380 miles), at a cost of $33 billion, to be completed in 2020. The plan now is Gilroy to Palmdale (just under 300 miles), at a cost of $87 billion, to be completed in 2038.
The California high-speed rail is an unmitigated disaster. It was supposed to be done five years ago, and now what is being promised is a shorter, more expensive version that, in the best-case scenario, won’t be done for another 13 years. It would be difficult to argue that California hasn’t scammed its voters on the high-speed rail, and even more difficult to argue that any version of the project will be completed during the lifespan of the people who voted for it in 2008.