Sixteen years ago, California and the federal government began funding a plan for high-speed rail that was to run from
On Wednesday, Fox Business reported:
California’s embattled high-speed rail project suffered a major setback after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the termination of $4 billion in unspent federal funding by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).
Citing 16 years of failure, no completed high-speed track, and escalating costs, Duffy declared the project, dubbed the “train to nowhere,” a mismanaged and over-budget “boondoggle.”
“This is California’s fault. Governor Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years. Federal dollars are not a blank check – they come with a promise to deliver results,” Duffy said in a statement.
The announcement followed months of scrutiny after a comprehensive compliance review, plus failed attempts by the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) to address serious project deficiencies.
The article quotes President Trump:
“This boondoggle, led by the incompetent Governor of California, Gavin Newscum, has cost Taxpayers Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we have received NOTHING in return except Cost Overruns. The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will,” Trump continued.
“This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED. Thanks to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, not a SINGLE penny in Federal Dollars will go towards this Newscum SCAM ever again. This was an ill-conceived and unnecessary project, and a total waste of Taxpayer money — But no more!”
The article concludes:
In addition to canceling $4 billion in unspent federal funds to CHSRA, Duffy directed FRA to review other obligated and unobligated grants related to the CHSRA project.
The 300-page damning report, released back in June, examined the project and found delays, missed deadlines, mismanagement, waste, skyrocketing costs, budget shortfalls and overrepresentation of projected ridership.
Other key findings revealed that the project faced ongoing — and likely increasing — contractor cost overruns due to delays and that the CHSRA failed to finalize contracts for its high-speed trainsets on time.
The project was initially touted as a two-phase visionary system connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco, and later north to Sacramento, and south to San Diego.
The report states that despite the money already plowed into the project, there is a $7 billion funding gap to complete a subset of the first phase in the Central Valley from Merced to Bakersfield, known as the Early Operating Segment (EOS).
Since the project’s inception, it has been dramatically reduced from an 800-mile segment to a 171-mile segment.
The federal government is not good at building infrastructure projects at a reasonable cost. I remember the “big dig” in Boston.
