Editorial: End California bullet train boondoggle, once and for all

It’s time for California’s leadership to abandon the state’s high-speed rail boondoggle, once and for all.

If bullet train supporters want to put forth a realistic plan with realistic numbers that have been thoroughly vetted, then put it before California voters for approval. But lawmakers shouldn’t throw away additional money on a project that is going nowhere.

Voters in November 2008 were promised a system from San Diego to San Francisco and Sacramento at a cost of $45 billion. By 2019, the cost estimate had jumped to $80 billion and perhaps as high as $98 billion, but just for a system from San Francisco to Anaheim.

And how high is it today? That’s anybody’s guess. Cost overruns continue to plague the construction, which is still limited primarily to the Central Valley link, the Los Angeles Times reported last week. Rail authority Chief Executive Brian Kelly refused to quantify the magnitude of the excess charges.

The whole point of starting in the Central Valley was to build a test line in the region with the fewest obstacles, to demonstrate that it could attract riders and, in turn, lure investors for a public-private partnership. The rail authority can’t even get that right.

Earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom put $4.2 billion in his budget to move the project forward, but negotiations between his administration and the Legislature stalled.

Good for the Legislature.

The $4.2 billion of taxpayer funds provides the only leverage the Legislature has over what becomes of the project. What Californians have seen to date is a colossal waste of money.

Now Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, chair of the Assembly Transportation Committee, is asking whether it makes more sense to take the $4.2 billion and finish a non-electrified, diesel train line for the first rideable leg from Bakersfield to Merced. And the Los Angeles Times reported that Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, has sought to transfer some of the money from the Central Valley to high-speed rail segments in Southern California and the Bay Area.

Those may be better uses of the money. But they aren’t what voters were promised when they backed the bullet train bonds in 2008. Any significant change in the high-speed rail project should be brought before voters for approval.

Some high-speed rail backers hold out hope that the federal government will kick in enough funding from President Biden’s infrastructure bill to make the project work. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is a high-speed rail advocate, but even if Congress moves forward with the legislation, the federal funds for rail projects wouldn’t come close to providing the money needed to make California’s pie-in-the-sky plan a reality.

The sooner lawmakers accept the futility of pushing forward with the current plan, the better. California has no time to waste in its effort to solve the state’s transportation challenges.