High Speed Rail train, artists rendering. (Photo: CHSRA.ca.gov)
$700K High-Speed Rail Study Bill Passes Senate
How many expensive, state-funded studies of California’s long-troubled high-speed rail project does one train need?
By Evan Symon, June 4, 2025 2:47 am
A bill that would commission a study on potential commercial and residential economic development opportunities along the California High Speed Rail (CHSR) corridor between Los Angeles and San Francisco was passed by the Senate on Monday despite significant opposition against it.
Senate Bill 545, authored by Senator Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), would require the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, to commission a study on economic opportunities along the corridor of the California high-speed rail project and other high-speed rail projects in California that are planned to directly connect to the California high-speed rail project and to submit a progress report to the chairpersons of the Senate Committee on Transportation and the Assembly Committee on Transportation for input. The bill would also require the study to be completed and a report on the study’s findings and recommendations to be submitted to the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature.
Overall, the cost of SB 545 would be $700,000. As of June 2025, the total cost of the High-Speed Rail project hovers between $128 billion to $135 billion, with another $10.2-$14.2 billion likely to be tacked on soon. If passed, the cost of the study would be added onto the total amount spent on the project.
Senator Cortese has said that SB 545 is needed to help bring economic opportunities to the high-speed rail corridor, with added jobs and businesses nearby going towards helping improve rail ridership and create new revenue streams.
“The bill sets the foundation for leveraging commercial and residential development along the High Speed Rail corridor to create jobs, attract businesses and generate new revenue streams that will help fund a lot of things,” Cortese said in April.
Possible problems for SB 545 ahead
However, the high cost of the study, as well as it being seen as just another wasteful study for the already bloated CHSR, dampened interest in the bill. While it has continued to pass through committees, total GOP opposition, as well as a few Democrats joining them, have made SB 545 contentious. This was proven again on Monday where it passed 27-9 with 4 abstentions. Following passage in the Senate, GOP lawmakers slammed the bill, saying that it was just even more money going to the CHSR boondoggle.
“The skyrocketing costs and lack of transparency surrounding this mismanaged high-speed rail project further erode the public’s trust,” said Senator Tony Strickland (R-Huntington Beach) on Tuesday. “California does not have a revenue problem, we have a wasteful spending problem. Californians are sensitive to government waste, and this project stands out as one of the most significant examples of budgetary waste in the state.
“This is yet another expensive, state-funded study of California’s long-troubled high-speed rail project. How many studies does one train need? We are well beyond the original completion date of 2020, and I am concerned that the high-speed rail project TODAY is not the same project that voters passed in 2008.”
SB 545 will next be heard in Assembly Committees, where it is expected to face high opposition once again. For supporters of the bill, the real challenge is likely to come with Governor Gavin Newsom should the bill pass the Assembly. While Newsom is a supporter of CHSR, he has been known in recent years to veto high cost bills that he would have otherwise signed off on, like several high cost reparations bills he vetoed last year. And with the state in the midst of a $12 billion deficit, SB 545 could be seen as too high a cost for a study.
Originally estimated to cost $33 billion in 2008 with a San Francisco to Los Angeles line set to open by 2028, the California high speed rail system now has an estimated partial completion being set somewhere in the 2030’s. As of June 2025, only 171 miles of track are under construction on the project that will now only connect from Bakersfield to Merced.
Do you think he understands that the only way you get high speed rail is if you have very few stops? Not much to study.
No doubt Democrat Senator Dave Cortese’s “study” is just another Democrat grift and graft scam involving their stupid train-to-nowhere that will only benefit their political cronies and it will produce nothing of value?
Any white man like Democrat Senator Dave Cortese who is still in the Democrat party at this point has to be corrupt to the core?
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy
@SecDuffy
has released a new 310-page report that concludes CA’s high-speed rail project has “no viable path forward.”
In a statement just released, the
@USDOT
says federal grants for the project could be terminated in 37 days after the CA High Speed Rail Authority responds to the report.
“The detailed report, which is over 300 pages, contains 9 key findings including missed deadlines, budget shortfalls, and overrepresentation of projected ridership. The two grants total roughly $4 billion in taxpayer money. As the letter notes, CHSRA has up to 37 days to respond, after which the grants could be terminated.”
YES!
Here is your progress report Senator Dave Cortese, free of charge!
Billions of dollars spent and no high speed rail to show for it!
A French contractor set to do the work years ago pulled out and went to North Africa where they said it was a better run system than the government of California! Ouch!
How about Dave Cortese and such take action and pull the plug on this boondoggle!
https://revolver.news/2025/06/french-experts-fled-newsoms-project-said-california-was-more-dysfunctional-than-north-africa/
I am repeating myself but if HSR had been built in the I-5 Median with few stops (Fresno, Bakersfield) it MIGHT HAVE WORKED. But as envisaged it will never work. There I finished the Study for them! Gratis!!!
There’s nothing to study. Fifteen years, billions of dollars spent and not a single piece of rail in place.
This study is another waste of taxpayer dollars. Obviously, it will show the glorious opportunities available if we just continue to stupidly support this gigantic white elephant.
Just another t*rd polishing exercise from Newsom and company.
He and his fellow commies want to know which properties to snatch up before they become expensive in the unlikely event that the train actually becomes operational.
I’ll a $ that money is earmarked to pay for a legal defence, to allow little boys be something else.
I’ll bet a $…
This is a hard NO NO NO. No more funding for consultants to tell us what we know already.
These people do the same thing over and over and over and over. It’s ENOUGH, okay?
It goes to Assembly next. Don’t let these people slide this nervy absurdity through on the sly.
Find and contact your Assembly rep below and tell them to Vote NO on SB 545. The Dems are already doubtful about this nonsense; give them the push they need. The push they want!
https://www.assembly.ca.gov/assemblymembers
NO on SB 545
Pursuing access to tax revenue by financing a study which has no connection with where it will end up and what it will be used for.