Free Republic

The California High-Speed Rail Authority is asking Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators to release about $4.1 billion in state bond funds to ensure that there is enough money to complete construction that’s now underway on the bullet-train route in Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties. If the governor, the state Assembly and the state Senate ultimately concur this spring, the money would come from Proposition 1A, a $9.9 billion high-speed rail bond approved by California voters in 2008. The rail authority’s board unanimously approved the request in a Zoom video meeting Tuesday. Still pending in the state’s 3rd...

The $2.5 billion has already been spent — but California has failed to deliver the high-speed rail (on time, or at all) as promised. Therefore, the Trump administration argues, the state has to repay federal taxpayers. The Los Angeles Times quoted Stanford law professor David Freeman Engstrom, a Stanford law professor, describing Trump’s effort as a “nuclear option.” The practice of recovering money after a breach of contract, while common in the private sector, was virtually unheard of in government, he explained. “There is a reluctance to penalize misspending by local government agencies. … Almost never do those violations result...

California’s bullet train could cost taxpayers 50% more than estimated — as much as $3.6 billion more. And that’s just for the first 118 miles through the Central Valley, which was supposed to be the easiest part of the route between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A confidential Federal Railroad Administration risk analysis, obtained by The Times, projects that building bridges, viaducts, trenches and track from Merced to Shafter, just north of Bakersfield, could cost $9.5 billion to $10 billion, compared with the original budget of $6.4 billion. The federal document outlines far-reaching management problems: significant delays in environmental planning,...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Federal authorities say California's $68 billion higher-speed rail could harm the protected kit fox.

Advocates for the projected bullet train running from San Francisco to Los Angeles argued at the Public Policy Institute’s all-day State of Change conference last week that simply getting the project started would catalyze the federal government to pour more money into the $67.6 billion boondoggle. The California High-Speed Rail Authority offered the $67.6 million figure in February 2014 ... As Reason Magazine recently reported, “The CHSRA April 2012 Business Plan is so deficient that it is inconceivable that policymakers would continue to rely on its assertions to evaluate the program.”

Its popularity has declined sharply, many of its details have yet to emerge, and independent authorities have questioned its financial and operational viability, but California's bullet train project is very likely to get the green light from the Legislature soon. That's the consensus of those who have been counting votes among the Legislature's dominant Democrats, who can give the California High-Speed Rail Authority authorization to sell bonds and begin construction of an initial segment in the San Joaquin Valley. And that's true even though lawmakers still don't know, in any detail, what linking the northern and southern halves of the...

The national media have devoted plenty of skeptical attention to California’s bullet-train boondoggle—from the ballooning cost of the California High-Speed Rail Authority project to its shoddy management to the baffling decision to build the first segment in the lightly populated Central Valley. But the press has yet to focus on a crucial fact: the bullet train isn’t just some quirky Left Coast fiasco; it’s also a grotesque waste of federal money. The project serves as a powerful reminder of the Obama administration’s mishandling of the $787 billion stimulus that Congress passed in February 2009 with solemn assurances of prudence and...

California's high-speed rail project has been plagued with cost increases, delays and political shenanigans since 2008, when voters authorized $9.9 billion in bonds to help pay for it. Unsurprisingly, recent weeks have brought more of the same. The independent Legislative Analyst now says the state must repay more than $700 million annually if bonds are sold to build an initial 130-mile Central Valley route. Ultimately, the plan would link San Diego and San Francisco. But to get $3.3 billion in federal funds, train authorities agreed to put the first tracks where populations are sparse, rather than in densely populated areas...

Gov. Jerry Brown said Sunday that cap-and-trade fees could help pay for high-speed rail, and that the cost would be well under the $100 billion forecast by the California High-Speed Rail Authority just three months ago. “It’s not going to be $100 billion,” Brown said. “That’s way off.” The voter-approved project would create a 220-mph train from San Francisco to Anaheim with eventual connections to Sacramento and San Diego. According to a transcript of the interview in the Sacramento Bee, Brown said, “Phase 1, I’m trying to redesign it in a way that in and of itself will be justified...

Despite a huge state budget deficit, Gov. Jerry Brown said last week that he not only intends to increase spending, he also plans to move ahead with California's questionable high-speed rail project, even though multiple critiques conclude it is a waste of tax money. ... The governor's refusal to delay or kill the implausible train project should make taxpayers wary of a bill introduced last week by Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-West Hollywood, to allow "public rail transit projects" to avoid rigorous environmental review.

Roelof van Ark, chief executive officer of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, announced this afternoon that he is quitting, the latest setback for the state's beleaguered campaign to build a nearly $100 billion rail network in California. His resignation, announced at a board meeting in Los Angeles and effective in two months, comes at a critical point for the project, with rail officials bidding for Legislative approval to start construction in the Central Valley this fall. Public opinion about the project has fallen sharply, according to a recent Field Poll, and the Legislature is highly skeptical. Minutes after van Ark's...