re: Bullet train bros - our new Transportation Secretary is asking questions

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Transit experts and state policy advisers have continued to question how the lofty project will be paid for as the proposed cost has increased without guaranteed funding sources. Projected ridership has also dipped since the pandemic.

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“Schedules are stretching out, demand estimates have fallen and financing is inadequate and unstable,” said high-speed rail peer-review group chair Louis Thompson at a recent state legislative hearing. The state-appointed panel advises the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

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Rail Authority Chief Executive Brian Kelly, who plans to step down this year, and other rail officials have also acknowledged the questionable funding of a rail system with less than a quarter of its length under construction three years after the the first phase was supposed to be completed.

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Voters first approved a high-speed rail proposal in 2008 that would connect Los Angeles to San Francisco by 2020.

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There is no set timeline for when anyone will be able to ride the entire 494-stretch from Anaheim to San Francisco.

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The current focus centers on the Central Valley, where officials estimate the 171-mile line from Merced to Bakersfield will be finished between 2030 and 2033.

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There are currently 119 miles under construction stretching from Madera to Shafter.

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“We’re starting in the most underpopulated portion of the route,” said Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at UC Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment. “The voters and the taxpayers in the [more] populated areas see no benefit from the system.”

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Officials expect that the 463-mile stretch between Los Angeles and San Francisco will be environmentally cleared by May, pending approval of a key section between Palmdale and Burbank.

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The high-speed rail peer-review group has recommended the Legislature commission an “independent review of the economic and financial justification for the project” before “recommitting” to the first phase.

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Officials estimate it could cost about $35 billion to finish the first line from Bakersfield to Merced and roughly $100 billion more to complete the route from Los Angeles to San Francisco — about $100 billion more than what was originally proposed years ago. And the source of most funds is unclear.

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High-speed rail development relies on state and federal funding and California’s cap-and-trade incentive, which is set to expire in 2030. The authority hopes to secure private investments in the future, according to its most recent business plan, but currently uses none.

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“We want a federal partner that celebrates California and that celebrates what high-speed rail not only brings to our state, but really, to our nation,” state assembly Transportation Chair Lori D. Wilson (D-Suisun City) said.

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The Biden administration has been more supportive. It recently awarded the state more than $3 billion for the project, which will go toward helping the completion of the Central Valley line.

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The authority is still about $7 billion short for what’s needed to finish the Central Valley line, in addition to the tens of billions of dollars needed to fund the rest of the route. “There is no source of that money right now,” Thompson told The Times. “If and when they reach the point where they want to get out of the Central Valley, then the state itself is going to have to find a lot more money because the costs are going to explode.”

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“They were hiring consultants, they were getting sued, they were spending a lot of money and nothing was getting built,” Elkind said. Environmental reviews and lawsuits over the authority’s plans to disrupt housing complexes and developments have caused other setbacks. So has political jockeying and the project’s need for buy-in from voters across the state’s 58 counties. Over the years, local leaders have opined about where the train should go and which communities should directly benefit, leading to shifts in strategy that have prolonged the process.

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In downtown Fresno, for example, a thoroughfare road has been closed for eight years. In Bakersfield, business owners have sought clarity about when they’ll have to move, and where they will relocate to, making planning difficult. There are some logistical questions that have yet to be answered too, including how people will ultimately get to future stations in areas that have limited public transit.

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Remember that Diane Feinstein husband was a private developer in this project.

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If they ever build it, which they won't, Musk's Boring Company will likely make bank.

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