High-speed rail "between Merced and Bakersfield"?

John Pritchett

In the Santa Maria Times:

Troubled bullet train project given a reprieve

Dan Walters

California’s much-troubled bullet train project has gotten a reprieve with a political deal to free up $4.2 billion in bond money, but it still faces years of uncertainty over its fate.

In 2019, just weeks after being inaugurated as California’s governor, Gavin Newsom issued what many took as a death knell for the state’s troubled bullet train project.

“But let’s be real,” Newsom told legislators in his first State of the State address. “The current project, as planned, would cost too much and respectfully take too long. There’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency. Right now, there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A.,” Newsom said. “I wish there were. However, we do have the capacity to complete a high-speed rail link between Merced and Bakersfield.”

....The reaction from project supporters, particularly construction unions, was swift and sharply negative and Newsom claimed that reporters misinterpreted his intentions....

He insisted that he wasn’t abandoning a statewide system but wanted to concentrate first on completing a working portion in the San Joaquin Valley. That limited goal, however, also has vexed the governor as costs continued to rise and work slowed to a crawl.

Seizing on Newsom’s words, President Donald Trump’s administration tried to claw back a nearly $1 billion federal grant for the project that predecessor Barack Obama had awarded. When Joe Biden became president, the grant was restored.

Last year, Newsom asked the Legislature to appropriate the $4.2 billion remainder of a $9.95 billion bond issue that voters approved in 2008 to build the system, but legislative leaders balked, saying that it would be money down a rathole and would be better spent on local and regional transit projects.

The stalemate over the bond money lasted for a year, but in June, Newsom bought off legislative naysayers by providing $3.65 billion from the state’s huge budget surplus for local projects in return for freeing the bond money.

However, the compromise also included an inspector general’s position to oversee the High Speed Rail Authority, which outside critics have faulted for delays and cost overruns.

“They know that with the inspector general that they’re going to be watched,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, one of the sharpest critics, said. “They’re going to be held accountable.”

....It could be a decade or more before trains actually begin carrying passengers between the two cities, but without connecting Bakersfield to Los Angeles and Merced to San Francisco, the segment would be little more than an amusement park ride.

As it stands — and as Newsom said in that 2019 speech — there are no plans to finance multi-billion-dollar extensions to make the bullet train a real transportation alternative. 

He seems to be content to provide enough money to maintain construction for the remainder of his governorship and leave it to his successor — or successors — to decide what to do after that.

See also The "costliest infrastructure project in human history" and $6 billion tunnel to get $100 billion train to $2 billion bus station and Newsom on high-speed rail: Same old crap and Gavin Newsom: Gay marriage and high-speed rail.

Matt Davies