Gov. Newsom Touts How Advanced California’s HSR Project Is Over Texas, While Ignoring Shortfalls

In a post on Wednesday, Governor Gavin Newsom mocked how “advanced” California’s plans were for a high-speed rail system, comparing California High-Speed Rail to the proposed Texas Central High-Speed Rail Line. On Instagram, he showed this:

To Newsom’s credit, it is fairly factual. The initial planned San Francisco-SoCal line is indeed 494 miles compared to the Texas Central Dallas to Houston line. And there has been some construction on the High-Speed rail line in California with nothing currently developing in Texas. But he slips in some areas.

A 2030-2033 initial opening segment in California is very much optimistic. Current funding shortfalls and the normal California construction delays are expected to push the start date further into the 2030s right now. And the 15,000 jobs against Texas’ 0 is pretty skewed. Texas does have some employees right now, even if they are just planning and keeping up the website. California, meanwhile, doesn’t go into how many of those jobs are seasonal, part-time or contingent.  Again, Newsom is going for the most optimistic numbers instead of the realistic.

“What’s the main difference between California high-speed rail and Texas high-speed rail? California’s system is under construction; Texas’ has yet to break ground,” said the Governor’s office on Wednesday. “California has transitioned from vision and ideas to active construction and tangible economic benefits, while the Texas project remains a dream mostly on paper. Despite the noise from Washington, California high-speed rail is becoming real. It’s another critical project part of the Governor’s build more, faster agenda delivering infrastructure upgrades and thousands of jobs across the state.

“Despite the Trump Administration’s assaults, both California and Texas are working to build high-speed rail. But only one state has built anything: California.”

But the problem with that boast is just how on the rocks the whole system is right now, and even worse, all the figures he isn’t giving. The big thing for most is money, and here all Newsom would give is the funding structure and potential economic benefits.

For funding structure he conveniently left out how federal funding is pretty much dead in the water and that private funding will likely need to be relied more on. And as for potential economic benefits, those numbers are extremely speculative right now. There has been job creation and a reliance on Californian contractors, but all we are talking about is construction. The end product is where economic benefits come from, and right now, all there is to show are some sad looking bridges in the Central Valley and plans for possibly the worst designed train stations ever.

What Newsom failed to mention was the cost, and for a good reason. Right now, the Texas project is estimated at $41.6 billion, up from an initial $10 billion in 2013. Oh, and by the way, the Trump administration cut all federal funding for Texas Central too, so he isn’t playing favorites. Now compare that to California. Originally estimated to cost $33 billion in 2008 with a San Francisco to Los Angeles line  to open by 2028, the California high speed rail system has since ballooned to $128 billion, then $135 billion+, with an estimated partial completion somewhere in the late 2030’s. And last year, CHRSA actually confirmed that the system still needed $100 billion to link up San Francisco and Los Angeles. The true cost may also be much higher than anticipated, with some estimates during the Governorship of Jerry Brown putting that figure at around $350 billion. And, for everything so far, $13 billion has been spent – and we still haven’t even linked up San Diego or Sacramento.

It is curious to point out that, while the Texas line is still much cheaper, both projects have gone up in cost to roughly four times their original estimate with little to no progress to show for it. Also scary is the projected ridership numbers. Newsom didn’t give any. Right now, projected future ridership for California is around 31 million per year, but that is only after going down from an initial 38 million per year. Texas meanwhile has given 13 million as a figure, but that went up from an original 9 million. California’s projections, and thus, how much they can expect in returned funds, is getting worse.

So yes, California High-Speed Rail is technically ahead on the Texas project in some areas, as well as others Newsom didn’t even bother to name. But he is still not owning the growing costs, the declining ridership estimates, the actual likely opening dates, the possibility that the whole project might just be scrapped because of dwindling funds, or the growing unpopularity of the project