U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that an investigation will begin into the California high-speed railway project due to poor management and enormous costs.
“The train that’s being built between Los Angeles and San Francisco is the worst managed project that I think I’ve ever seen. Hundreds of billions of dollars over budget. It is the worst thing and we get to start an investigation on that because it is impossible that something could cost that much. And now it is not even going to San Francisco and is not going to Los Angeles. They made it much shorter and now is way away from San Francisco and way away from Los Angeles. We’re going to start a big investigation… The worst overruns that ever have been in the history of our country,” President Trump said, during a discussion with the media in the Oval Office.
For the first phase, the California high-speed railway project has a cost range of USD 89 billion to USD 128 billion, “compared to the cost range of USD 179 billion to USD 253 billion that would be necessary to construct the equivalent highway and air passenger capacity,” according to the California High Speed Rail Authority.
Phase one of the project includes the construction of a 837 km high-speed line from San Francisco/Merced to Los Angeles/Anaheim via the underway Central Valley section, while the phase two include a connection from Merced to Sacramento and from Los Angeles to San Diego.
Currently, 422 miles (679 km) are cleared, and the Board will consider certifying the environmental documents for the 41-mile section (66 km) between Palmdale to Burbank, giving final clearance to the 463 miles (745 km) of the project between downtown San Francisco and downtown Los Angeles.
There is currently 275 km under design and construction work from Merced to Bakersfield, with 96.5 km of guideway being completed.
While the Central Valley remains the center of Authority’s construction and early operations work, work advances in three distinct segments of roughly equal distance covering the Bay Area (159 miles/256 km), Central Valley (171 miles/275 km), and Southern California (164 miles/264 km), according to the California high-speed railway project 2024 Business Plan.
The 171 miles (275 km) Merced – Bakersfield is the first section which will become operational between 2030 and 2033.
Funding included USD 4.2 billion from Proposition 1A in 2022 and allocations from Cap-and-Trade auctions, which range from USD 750 million to USD 1.25 billion annually. Despite these funding sources, there is still a gap between the available funds and the total capital costs for which the Authority developed a federal funding strategy and approach to secure USD 8 billion in new federal grants over the next five years.
Share on:
