All we ever hear about California’s high-speed rail project is that it needs more funding, has been delayed, or both. It is time for California to face the reality that it will probably never be finished.

The latest update comes courtesy of the California Legislative Analyst’s Office at a transportation-focused budget hearing in Sacramento. Legislators were told that the project needed another $7 billion by June, that there was no plan to get that $7 billion on the horizon, and that failure to secure the money would lead to yet another delay. That delay would be on the Merced-to-Bakersfield line, the shortened line that the project is (allegedly) working on, while the full San Francisco-to-Los Angeles plan remains an afterthought.