The California high-speed rail experiment will go down in history as one of the great public works fiascoes of all time. It just got worse.
The choo-choo that was to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours and was forecast to cost $33 billion, is now expected to cost almost four times that amount, or $128 billion.
The train just got yet another lifeline from Washington. The Biden Administration has approved a new $3 billion federal grant that will cover, at most, not even one-third of the unfunded deficit for the 157-mile Merced to Bakersfield segment. The rest of the route connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles will be vastly more expensive due to the mountains.
Someone should have pulled the plug on this rolling white elephant years ago. Now, federal taxpayers have to bear the cost for this money-burning machine, while Biden calls this an “investment.”
Why is anyone even the slightest bit surprised by this flop? These are the same people who gave us Amtrak 50 years ago with the solemn promise repeated umpteen times that “profitability is right around the corner.” It has lost money every year of operation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/