From CNBC,
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pulled $175 million from California’s high-speed rail project on Tuesday, just a month after canceling $4 billion in federal grants.
I do hope that there is no more money left to be pulled. You remember this project, meant to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles via high-speed trains in under 3 hours (cf. SFO to LAX in 90 minutes) Eventually, ambitions shrank down to a 171-mile route connecting Merced to Bakersfield. So far, 119 miles of this segment is “under construction,” but to be clear, not a single inch of actual railroad track has ever been laid, ever. The line now under construction would run from south of Fresno to some point in the middle of the Central Valley, about 19 miles north of Bakersfield.
The projected demand from passengers for this not-quite-Fresno to not-quite-Bakersfield route, rounded off to the nearest integer, and expressed as a whole number, is zero.
The current price tag for the scaled-back project runs to $22 billion with an in-service date pushed back to 2033.
The project, dating back more than 30 years, has consumed some $15 billion in taxpayer money. And it’s still racking up milestones. From Newsweek,
The California High-Speed Rail Authority has completed another key infrastructure element in the Central Valley, opening the Avenue 88 Grade Separation in Tulare County.
The new overpass spans 485 feet and clears both State Route 43 and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway line, as well as the corridor for future high-speed trains.
“Future high-speed trains”? Now, that’s optimism.
