High-Speed Rail: Should Californians ‘End the Nightmare’?

California’s high-speed rail funding was delayed yet again, causing some to wonder if the project truly is a train to nowhere.

When voters passed Proposition 1A in 2008, the estimated $30 billion transportation project was designed to let Californians travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in two hours.

However, current estimates from the High-Speed Rail Authority now project $126 billion for a bare-bones “optimized plan,” and $250 billion for the original plan as approved by voters—a 700% increase over the initial budget.

Assemblyman David Tangipa, R-Fresno, told The Daily Signal the High-Speed Rail Authority’s “optimized” plan is not only costly, but “illegal.”

“The plan that was given to us right now is illegal. It’s non-compliant with state law, and we’ve got to have a really hard look in the mirror of what California high-speed rail is going to look like in the future,” he said. “… I think that we have to go all the way back to the books and potentially go back to the voters to see if they still approve this project like they did in 2018.”

Edward Ring, director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, agrees with Tangipa.

“Back in 2008, voters were told that it would be a $30 billion total project cost and that it would be a bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two hours,” he told The Daily Signal. ” … But if they built it today the way they sold it to voters, it would be $251 billion.”

Congressman Vince Fong, a Republican from California, has a different solution to the project’s ballooning cost.

“The next step for California’s High-Speed Rail Authority is simple: end this project. We were promised a completed system by 2020 for $33 billion,” he said. “Instead, it’s 2026 with zero operational trains, zero usable tracks, a business plan that the Authority’s own inspector general says lacks transparency and violates state law, and a price tag that’s ballooned to $231 billion.

“It’s the quintessential example of government waste. California taxpayers have been forced to bankroll this boondoggle for far too long—it’s time to end this nightmare.”

However, some policy experts says at least part of the project can be salvaged. 

“There’s enough funding to maybe get us from Bakersfield to Merced. There’s certainly no funding available that would be sufficient to connect that Central Valley segment to either Los Angeles or San Francisco,” Marc Joffe, president of the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association, said.  

Joffe added that the original plan of a two hour, 40-minute ride from San Francisco to LA is “not achievable” and will be “closer to four hours.” He said voters should be able to weigh in on both the construction costs and operating losses.

The transportation project has other missed targets, including carbon emissions estimates, which Joffe said would take “71 years of service to recapture the initial cost in terms of new carbon emissions.” Also, he ended by comparing California’s infrastructure work to similar projects in China.

“China started their projects in the exact same year. China has built 33,000 miles, and we haven’t built beyond 1600 feet,” he said.

“There’s no excuse for saying that high speed rail can’t happen. The only excuse is that we have inept elected officials, or there’s some systemic fraud happening in high-speed, under our noses, essentially.”