California’s high-speed rail has run into constant problems, mainly stemming from cost overruns. The latest money crunch has California Democrats considering whether the magic train will even be “high-speed.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom has been trying to negotiate with the state Legislature to release about $4 million in bond money for the project, as the California High-Speed Rail Authority said it was needed to continue construction beyond the summer of 2022. At the center of dispute is whether the project should electrify the line right away, which would lock the state into the project long-term, or to focus on other aspects as the Legislature wants to do.
The glaring issue is that the project was sold as a high-speed rail. Of course, it was also sold as traveling between Los Angeles and San Francisco for a $33 billion price tag, with construction starting in 2012. Instead, it started three years late, has ballooned up to $98 billion (so far), and the first leg of the track will only go from Merced to Bakersfield. Even that shortened section of track isn’t expected to be operational until 2029, and chances are, even that’s optimistic.
To top it all off, the Associated Press notes that “electrified or not, the project is still short tens of billions of dollars.”
California Democrats are now appearing to get cold feet. Perhaps they’re aware the project is still a financial sinkhole and that, even if the first stage does get built, it will be an incredibly underwhelming feat that will be roundly mocked. Newsom appears content to keep pushing forward because admitting defeat and ending this abomination would be disastrous for him. But he still can’t drag the rest of his party along for the ride.
The big losers, though, are Californians themselves. They let politicians and labor unions pull the wool over their eyes. The Central Valley, a more conservative area of the state, got the worst deal, as unfinished structures and carved-up farmland litter the area. Yet, California Democrats neither want to move forward nor admit defeat.
The project was a predictable disaster, a liberal pipe dream ill-thought-out from the beginning. Now, it sits in a bizarre state of inaction as its features continue to be stripped away while the price continues to rise. The project was supposed to transport people up and down the state. Instead, all it has done is transport taxpayer money to unions and developers.
