Biden Tosses in His Two Percent’s Worth

The Biden administration has tossed a $3.1 billion lifeline to never ending slow speed train wreck that is California’s LA to SF high speed rail project.

“California is delivering on the first 220-mph, electric high-speed rail project in the nation,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom who once, in a brief moment of lucidity, discussed trash canning the project. “This show of support from the Biden-Harris Administration is a vote of confidence in today’s vision and comes at a critical turning point, providing the project new momentum.”

With a projected cost of more than $130 billion (that’s just LA to SF; the promised San Diego and Sacramento lines would add another $50-ish billion,) the BidenBucks amounts to about 2.3% of the project’s cost.

Earlier this year, Republicans in the House of Representatives unveiled a bill that would specifically disallow any federal “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act” money from going to the project.  That bill remains stalled.

The $3.1 billion will most likely go to fill the $8 billion funding gap remaining to complete the segment of the project from Bakersfield to Merced, though the part of that line that runs from Shafter to Madera may already have enough funding to be finished.

When originally approved by voters, the entire project was supposed to cost about $33 billion and take about until, well, just about now to finish.  Currently, projections put the cost at upwards of at least five times that amount – https://thomas699.substack.com/p/longer-and-harder  – and a 2030 operational date for just the bit from Merced to Bakersfield.

Considering the project is decades overdue and more than $100 billion over budget, the intelligence of the Biden administration sinking $3.1 billion into it seems questionable.

It is even more questionable considering the project has no idea where the rest of the money will come from, meaning it is quite possible the entire effort will result in building a different train from Bakersfield to Merced – Amtrak already runs that route.  

While the new train may be a bit faster and shinier and solar powered, it will cost nearly twice as much to ride – wonder which one people will pick?