Stop Pulling the Wagon

Above represents current passenger option for

 CALIFORNIA HIGH SPEED RAIL – Fresno to Bakersfield

CURRENT ESTIMATED COST 88 TO 128 BILLION DOLLARS AND STILL RISING

I first wrote about California’s proposed High Speed Rail plan to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles back in 2013 in an article titled:   California – It Is What It Is (still available) when California approved the plan and using some $9 Billion Dollars in borrowed funds began a project which they claimed would be completed in some 3-5 years.  By 2019 they had spent the $9 Billion Dollars (or more-since real numbers are hard to pry out of State) and had scaled back the project with a hope to complete some 110 miles between Fresno and Bakersfield.  (See: California High Speed Rail 2.0  also still available).  Every year they have budgeted amounts in the range of $1 Billion more dollars for this money pit and, to date, –  this is 2024, not one single passenger has ridden one single mile on a High Speed Train.

In the latest “Pie in the Sky” investment proposal in this “Money Pit Black Hole”,:  The California Globe (Thomas Buckley – June 29, 2024)  reports:

“The consistently accurate and forward looking board of the California High Speed Rail Authority has decided that it is a good idea to dig 30 miles of tunnels to connect Burbank to Palmdale.

The purely political zig-zag to include Palmdale in the system (votes in the Antelope Valley) of the high speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco is about 38 miles and earlier this week the Board approved an environmental impact report that sets out an 8 mile above-ground, 30 mile below-ground route to make the connection.

The Authority claims the route will cost about $28 billion dollars to complete.  For comparison’s sake, that is about 80% of the originally promised costs of the entire system connecting San Diego to LA to SF to Sacramento.

It should be noted that the cost was originally reported by news outlets as being $22.6 billion – but the Authority clarified Thursday that was in 2018 dollars,  so now it’s really about $28 Billion Dollars.

The plan voters approved was to build a system of about 840 miles for about $33 billion.”

(For the complete article see: The California Globe – Thomas Buckley – June 29, 2024) CaliforniaGlobe.com

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My editors note:  According to Google the actual distance from Burbank to Palmdale is 52 miles – not 38 miles as stated by the High Speed Rail Authority “brain trust”.

I find it an interesting “co-incidence” that this $28 Billion Dollar High Speed Rail Tunnel project is almost the same amount as California’s $27+ Billion Dollar annual budget deficit under California Governor Gavin Newsom.  This whole project is and has been in my, and other critics, view never been anything more than a thinly veiled “Pork Barrel” payoff to Organized Labor and Equipment/Material Suppliers for supporting California’s One Party Democrat controlled Legislature.  Frankly they have no incentive to ever complete the project and stop fleecing taxpayers.  It is not a High Speed Rail Project.  It is “California’s Pork Gravy Train” for those who continue to glean money from the “Rat Hole” it has become.

For related articles see:

https://www.stoppullingthewagon.com/california-it-is-what-it-is/ and 

https://www.stoppullingthewagon.com/?s=California+high+speed+rail

Bob Bandy – July 2024