SACRAMENTO, Calif. — We should all be tired by now of grandiose transportation promises based on “look how they do it in Europe” rather than “this will improve the lives of Americans,” but supporters of California’s High Speed Rail System admittedly have little to tout after 16 years of spending, broken promises, and delays. The agency that runs the bullet train project has built some infrastructure along corridors in the Central Valley, but the project is the poster child for the term “boondoggle.”
The Biden administration last year dumped $3.1 billion in federal subsidies into the project to keep it moving, but the Trump administration is unlikely to look so kindly toward California’s approach. Trump often is inconsistent, of course. In an August X chat with Elon Musk, the president-elect bemoaned America’s lack of bullet trains: “They go unbelievably fast … and we don’t have anything like that in this country.… And it doesn’t make sense that we don’t, doesn’t make sense.”
Nevertheless, California officials shouldn’t take much solace. Vivek Ramaswamy, who with Musk will co-lead the new Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE), put the project in his crosshairs by noting its myriad failed promises, per the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper also reported that U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, has announced legislation that would rein in federal funding. “That federal support is keeping the project on life support,” he correctly noted.
California’s bullet train defenders refuse to grapple with the reality. In May, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg explaining, “Voters were promised” the “project would cost the state $33 billion and be completed by 2020” but the state “has not completed a single segment of the system, the total estimated cost has ballooned to $128 billion and counting, and there is no expected completion date.”
The concept isn’t necessarily a bad one. An ongoing Southern California to Nevada bullet train project that’s in part privately funded is encouraging. That one seems driven by demand, as almost anyone might enjoy a weekend train from the Los Angeles area to Las Vegas that takes far less time than driving. But it’s important not to throw money at failure, especially one that shows few signs of a turnaround.
Yet here’s a recent social media post from state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, who is one of the Legislature’s top bullet train supporters: “If Paris & Berlin can do it, so can San Francisco & LA. We need to profoundly change how we design, approve & deliver transit projects in CA & the U.S. It needs to happen more quickly & effectively. We can have abundant rail service. I’m deeply committed to making that happen.”
OK, but how about addressing the system’s failed promises and specifying exactly how the state plans to speed up the construction process and reduce costs? That’s unlikely to happen, but I’m all ears for any specifics. I suspect it’s just pabulum. And it’s worth noting that the demand for travel from Merced to Bakersfield — the current route under construction — is lower than demand between two of Europe’s most notable cities. The rail authority is struggling to complete the flattest route — never mind the problems it faces taking trains over two large mountain ranges.
Voters were promised specific deliverables in the Proposition 1A ballot measure pushed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2008. The rail plan approved by the authority fell short of those guarantees, but the courts allowed it to continue, which set a precedent that the language in voter initiatives might not mean very much.
For instance, there’s no conceivable way — especially with the proposed blended route that has the fast trains share tracks with commuter lines in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas — that trains will match the promised two-and-a-half-hour travel time between those two major metros. Tickets likely will cost far more than the promised $50, even when adjusted for inflation.
The project isn’t getting the promised private investment, either. In 2020, the Legislative Analyst’s Office concluded (in its trademark understated manner) that “[T]he state would likely bear a portion of the system’s operating costs, at least during interim service” — in direct opposition to Prop. 1A’s promise of no operating subsidy.
Former state Sen. Quentin Kopp of San Francisco, known as the father of the state’s rail project, has for years complained that the current project fails to live up to the ballot language. “The project cost for the non-high speed rail portion in the Central Valley increased last month to $35.3 billion from $25.2 billion,” he wrote last year. “It obtains money from a cap-and-trade program which adds 23 cents to every gasoline gallon.” His conclusion: “Close the project and convey remaining bond proceeds equally to Caltrain and Metrolink with statewide voter approval.”
As California Senate Republicans explain in a fact sheet, the proposal promised a total cost of $33 billion versus the latest estimate of $128 billion; it’s already four years beyond the promised completion date; and it’s unlikely to spur any reduction in greenhouse gases. Supporters like to tout its job creation, but those are purely the result of subsidies. There’s really nothing to recommend it at this point.
The only reason it keeps going is inertia. I’ve quoted this before, but it’s worth repeating. In 2013, former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown defended a different boondoggle (the largely empty Transbay Terminal in San Francisco) by arguing that with civic projects, officials need to “Start digging a hole and make it so big, there’s no alternative to coming up with the money to fill it in.” Maybe we need to consider the alternative: Stop plowing federal dollars into the hole.
Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.
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