{"id":329488,"date":"2026-05-23T15:34:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T15:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/329488\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T15:34:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T15:34:24","slug":"18-years-after-voters-okd-bullet-train-progress-has-stalled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/329488\/","title":{"rendered":"18 years after voters OK’d bullet train progress has stalled"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dan Walters<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""An\"
\n\t\t\t\tConstruction site of the High Speed Rail ramp in Fresno on Sept. 12, 2025. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters\/CatchLight Local<\/p>\n

This commentary was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

Construction of the 1,911-mile transcontinental railroad connecting California with the eastern half of the United States began in 1863, while the nation was engaged in a bloody civil war, and was completed six years later when its two legs were joined at Promontory Summit in Utah.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s bullet train project was launched in 2008 when voters passed a $9.95 billion bond issue<\/a> on promises that it would be completed by 2020, whisking passengers from one end of the state to the other.<\/p>\n

Eighteen years later, an initial segmen<\/a>t<\/a> in the San Joaquin Valley, linking a station near Merced with one near Bakersfield, is little more than a skeleton of concrete supports, dubbed Stonehenge by some critics, with no track, no trains and, therefore, no service.<\/p>\n

It is a hot mess that\u2019s contributing to California\u2019s reputation for managerial incompetence \u2014 as a recent episode of CBS network\u2019s \u201c60 Minutes\u201d<\/a> underscored. The program\u2019s interviews with project officials ripped open their inability to explain how and when the bullet train would be completed.<\/p>\n

Oddly, as the project\u2019s financial viability has shriveled, Gov. Gavin Newsom, once highly critical<\/a>, has become its most visible champion, staging media events to tout even its tiniest advances.<\/p>\n

Twelve years ago, while serving as lieutenant governor, Newsom was scornful. In a 2014 recorded interview<\/a>, he concluded, \u201cThe facts seem overwhelming that this project is not going to materialize in our lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five years later, in his first State of the State address, Newsom once again questioned the bullet train\u2019s viability.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be real,\u201d Newsom told legislators.<\/a> \u201cThe project as currently planned would cost too much and take too long. There\u2019s been too little oversight and not enough transparency. Right now, there simply isn\u2019t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsom\u2019s remarks were widely interpreted as him wanting to pull the plug. But after construction unions and other advocates pushed back, he insisted he wanted to see the project become reality, with a lengthened the San Joaquin Valley segment.<\/p>\n

Last February, his cheerleading took him to Kern County to celebrate a small supportive project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Here on the high-speed rail system, we\u2019re now in the process of starting to lay track, 119-mile first phase, fully funded because of the investments we\u2019ll make through the cap-and-invest program through 2045,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeventeen hundred people every single day \u2014 union jobs \u2014 go to work on this project. Fifty-eight large-scale structures have been completed; 29 others under way; 99% of the environmental work done. All of the hard work is behind us. Now we\u2019re going to see the fruits of that. We\u2019re going to start seeing precisely what you see here, real tracks, real progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of the hard work done? Not by a long shot.<\/p>\n

At best, it will take another six years \u2014 the same time span of the transcontinental railroad \u2014 before trains are carrying passengers, and that would only be between stations near two rural cities. Moreover, to get that far the project must borrow construction money by pledging its $1 billion a year from emission auctions.<\/p>\n

The saga\u2019s latest chapter is a new \u201cbusiness plan,\u201d<\/a> pegging the cost of linking San Francisco to the Los Angeles area by 2040 at $126 billion.<\/p>\n

In response, the Legislative Analyst\u2019s Office issued a critique<\/a> that listed the plan\u2019s shortcomings, concluding that it didn\u2019t meet state law requirements for transparency on costs and other points.<\/p>\n

The project was a mess when Newsom became governor; it will be a mess for his successor and it will probably be a mess when the next governor departs.<\/p>\n

The old saying about beating a dead horse and hoping it will revive comes to mind.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Dan Walters, CalMatters Construction site of the High Speed Rail ramp in Fresno on Sept. 12, 2025.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2675,7,9,8,964,457,5912,1967],"class_list":["post-329488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-accountability","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-commentary","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-san-joaquin-valley","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}