In the land of sun, surf, and Hollywood dreams, California’s high-speed train project has turned into a costly comedy worthy of a Hollywood screenplay—just with less laugh-out-loud moments and more grimacing. What started as a bright idea to connect the bustling metropolises of San Francisco and Los Angeles with a snazzy bullet train is now the poster child for government mismanagement. They say Ronald Reagan was right: government programs have a curious way of sticking around—often longer than anyone intended. Watching this train wreck unfold makes one wonder if perhaps the real speed limit here is just how fast disaster can happen.
Back in the early 2000s, California was swept up in a love affair with high-speed rail. The allure of speeding through the state at 200 miles per hour had politicians dreaming big—really big. The initial plan was to span 520 miles, with voters dazzled enough to approve a nearly $10 billion referendum in 2008. But, had the state stopped to draw up a budget rather than a dream board, they might have realized that those star-studded ridership projections and cost estimates were more fairy tale than fact. Fast forward fifteen years, and they are still dreaming—now, about a whopping $135 billion price tag and a timeline that resembles geological epochs rather than the next decade.
Instead of seeing progress, residents are left scratching their heads. Five years after the promised launch date of 2020, the only rail the state has laid is in fantasy land. The train that was supposed to whisk Californians to their destinations has, instead, become a long-winded saga of delays and disappointment. With track laying set to begin only next year, it’s as if they are waiting for some caffeinated fairy godmother to come sprinkle speed dust on the project. Sadly, the only magic here is how the cost keeps growing like an oversized California avocado.
To add to the circus act, the California legislature has decided to throw another $20 billion into this money pit. Funding will flow from a convoluted cap and trade program meant to make polluters pay for their emissions. The hitch? The rail authority will only receive a paltry $1 billion each year for the next two decades. Meanwhile, in a move that would make any carnival barker proud, the state also finds itself in a tug-of-war with the Trump administration, which is clawing back $4 billion because it feels it was misled about the original conditions of the funding. Who could have guessed that politicians might exaggerate just a tad?
But that’s not all; in a desperate attempt to recover costs, the rail authority is thinking about leasing land to real estate developers—because when has that ever gone off without a hitch? To compound their predicament, they’ve set their sights on solar facilities that not only aim to power the train but also plan to sell energy to private customers. One can only bet that this scheme might just turn into another budgetary black hole, swallowing money faster than a starving bear at a picnic.
As Californians watch this debacle unfold, it seems high time to pull the brakes on this fiscal fiasco. The allure of a high-speed train is seductive, no doubt. But when reality hits, it feels like a far-off fantasy that transports us straight to the land of “what were they thinking?” California has much to learn about the fast and furious nature of the government; it could be a comedy if it weren’t so heartbreakingly expensive.
