Helen Kerstein, a representative from the California Legislative Analyst Office, had the unenviable task of appearing before California lawmakers and giving them the bad news about the high-speed rail system currently under construction somewhere north of Los Angeles.
Kerstein admitted to lawmakers that the project needs another $7 billion by June 2026 or work will grind to a halt.
She said there was “no specific plan to meet that roughly $7 billion gap” and added that there is “some risk that that gap could grow.”
"Some risk" = drop-dead certainty.
“This isn’t a way out in the future funding gap. This is a pretty immediate funding gap,” she said.
Phase 1 of the project was originally estimated to cost $33 billion. Current estimates are north of $128 billion, and with this latest ask, projected costs are useless in any realistic sense.
The first phase will be from Merced to Bakersfield. That initial construction was chosen because it is the easiest to build topographically. It's relatively flat, and some existing tracks can be used.
About $23 billion has been spent to date, with the total cost of the Merced-Bakersfield stretch to hit $35 billion and be completed in 2033. Since nothing relating to this project has ever come in on time or under budget, you have to wonder why they even bother guessing.
Besides the bleak news of the funding gap, KCRA reported that the High Speed Rail Authority further frustrated lawmakers when it only submitted an “incomplete project update” in time for the budget hearing and said it would submit a more complete update on the plan for the project sometime in the summer.
A Democratic Assemblyman, Steven Bennett, told KCRA, “We have no plan, we have a good likelihood it’s going to get worse, and we have a short time to solve the problem.”
The hearing came shortly after Mr. Newsom released an episode of his new podcast during which he touted work on the 171-mile Merced-Bakersfield segment. “We did the rail head. We’re starting to lay track. This thing is starting to get very, very real,” he said. “Now the hard work is behind us.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was in rare form after the announcement of the additional funding request.
Now California says they need an additional $7B to fall out of the sky just for a 171-mile train from Merced to Bakersfield. What a joke! The state’s train to nowhere was supposed to cost around $33 billion and be done by 2020.
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) March 27, 2025
Here’s where we are in 2025:
• ~$15B spent.
•…
“We did the rail head. We’re starting to lay track," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on his podcast. "This thing is starting to get very, very real,” he added. “Now, the hard work is behind us.”
They've been trying to build this thing for a decade and have constructed just 22 miles of the 171-mile Merced-to-Bakersfield segment, the first phase of the 800-mile L.A. to San Francisco project. On what planet is "the hard work behind us"?
It's not like these big public works projects can't be done.
While California’s high-speed rail project has struggled, other states have seen similar undertakings completed in far less time. Florida’s Brightline, a privately owned passenger train that reaches speeds of up to 125 mph, was first proposed in 2012. By 2018, Brightline was operating between Miami and West Palm Beach. In 2023, it began running trains from Miami to Orlando, a distance of 235 miles, in 3.5 hours.
The company is also in the process of constructing a 218-mile system from Southern California to Las Vegas that will feature electric trains that can reach speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. It expects that line will be open in December 2028, missing its original goal of being functional in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics.
The unstated goal that Newsom is banking on is making high-speed rail "too big to fail." A few tens of billions of dollars more, and pulling the plug on it will be almost as expensive as building it.
That's why Duffy has to give the entire project the ax now. Not one more cent of federal money should be given to this turkey.
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