Trump Cancels California ‘High Speed Rail Train to Nowhere’
“Thanks to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, not a SINGLE penny in Federal Dollars will go towards this Newscum SCAM ever again.”
President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy canceled the $4 billion funding meant for California’s high-speed rail train.
From what I can tell, Leslie has been chronicling the stupid train at Legal Insurrection for over ten years!
Leslie published her first post on it in 2013.
The plan started 16 years ago. California has spent $15 billion but never built one high-speed track.
Duffy’s press release noted that the “$135 billion projected total cost of the project could buy every San Francisco and LA resident nearly 200 roundtrip flights between the cities.”
Trump wrote on Truth Social:
To the Law abiding, Tax paying, Hardworking Citizens of the United States of America, I am thrilled to announce that I have officially freed you from funding California’s disastrously overpriced, “HIGH SPEED TRAIN TO NOWHERE.” 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. 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!
Duffy started an investigation into the train in February, reviewing two grants:
- $929 million Cooperative Agreement from 2010
- $3.07 billion Cooperative Agreement from last year
In June, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) told the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) that the review “identified a trail of project delays, mismanagement, waste, and skyrocketing costs.”
“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. After over a decade of failures, CHSRA’s mismanagement and incompetence has proven it cannot build its train to nowhere on time or on budget,” declared Duffy. “It’s time for this boondoggle to die. President Trump and I will always fight to ensure your tax dollars only go to projects that accomplish great, big, beautiful things.”
The 310-page report detailed nine key findings:
- CHSRA has executed numerous change orders and will likely have many more change orders in the near future to account for contractor expenses as a result of project delays.
- CHSRA has already missed its deadline for finalizing its rolling stock procurement.
- CHSRA has at least a $7 billion funding gap to complete the EOS, with no credible plan to secure additional funds.
- CHSRA does not have a viable path to complete the EOS by 2033 per its commitment in the FY10 Agreement and the FSP Agreement.
- CHSRA relies on volatile non-federal funding sources, which present significant project risk.
- CHSRA lacks time and money to electrify the EOS by 2033.
- CHSRA’s budget contingency is inadequate to cover anticipated contractor delay claims.
- CHSRA has overrepresented its ridership projections for the EOS substantially.
- CHSRA lacks the capacity to deliver the EOS by 2033.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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Comments
The “train” to nowhere is synonymous with the California’s decline. It’s also a symbol of Newscum’s incompetence. A real twofer.
Jerry Brown’s incompetence, too.
“Former California Governor Jerry Brown was a strong and persistent advocate for the California High-Speed Rail project. He championed the project through his second governorship (2011-2019), even as it faced increasing costs and delays. Brown viewed it as a crucial infrastructure project for California’s future, connecting major metropolitan areas and promoting sustainable transportation. “
And the original ballot proposition passed during the ill-fated term of Arnold “the Governator” Schwarzenegger, who was all in and promoted it heavily. The Governator started out promising, but once he got rolled by the public sector employees unions he became Mr. Go Along To Get Along. He made RINOs look good in comparison.
“Screw your freedom.”
Married a Kennedy, for heaven’s sake.
California’s future is bleak.
A laudable decision, and, long overdue. And, this decision never would have been made by a Dhimmi-crat president, obviously, content as the Dhimmi-crats are to turn a blind eye to brazen thefts from the public fisc.
The high-speed rail project, as with all Dhimmi-crat “green” conceits, is nothing more than a criminal embezzlement/racketeering scheme, funneling taxpayers’ money into the pockets of Dhimmi-crat unions, cronies, courtiers and sycophants.
So, California Socialists can continue to waste their own citizens’ tax dollars to satisfy their eco-fetish, they just can’t waste tax dollars taken from other Americans any more to do it. Is that how this works?
That’s how I interpret it, yes. Which is as it should be. If California Dhimmi-crat apparatchiks want to fund profligate, ill-conceived and non-financially viable infrastructure projects that are rife with corruption and a lack of oversight, let them do it exclusively on their constituents’ dime. Perhaps then, there will be electoral consequences.
Exactly. The voters in CA can spend their own $ on goofy projects but they shouldn’t get any financial assistance from the rest of us to support their folly. No bailouts and cosigner for stupidity.
Ten years ago, I was visiting a college friend in San Francisco who told me about this project. I was excited to think that we could one day travel down to LA. She gently laughed at my naive optimism.
The concept of high-speed trains sounds great…until the hopium wears off and you’re left with reality.
The reality is in a lot of other western countries, not only is it possible but it’s been done. The problem with California is the inefficiencies the state creates for building anything, much less giant infrastructure projects like this. The leg of the system they’ve been trying to build is the easiest section to complete, WAY less complicated than the parts that are going to require huge grading or tunneling initiatives. This ‘easy’ part has cost them something in excess of $350M per mile.
In comparison, the parts of the Shinkansen (Japan’s national highspeed railway system) that are similar in construction difficulty cost Japan (in today’s dollars) roughly $120M per mile. Their impressive ‘MagLev’ system in the most difficult terrain (which there is a lot of in Japan) is ‘only’ costing them a bit more than California has spent per mile. If California ever would have made it to the challenging bits, they probably would need $500M per mile or more. They spent more on a portion of this 171-mile segment they’re trying to build than the entire LA to SFO system was projected to cost…in total. The problem isn’t the train technology. The technology is clearly there. The problem is California State incompetence.
I sure hope the secretary dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s that make this recission of funds legal IAW the Administrative Procedures Act, otherwise some federal judge in CA will rule that the $ has to keep flowing!
All good and well but will the federal government be able to “clawback” all the federal funds that were allocated to this project from the California High-Speed Rail Authority? Seems to me that if the CHSRA didn’t meet the agreed to deadlines and project goals that they agree to with the federal government they should be forced to refund all monies granted them up to now. But I suspect that it’s just a case that the money is long gone and the federal taxpayer is just out of luck.
I wonder how many lives were ruined with Eminent Domain invocations for this colossal waste of money.
I visited the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott last week, and was so taken with the bathos of this sign that I photographed it:
I’ve lived in Japan and visited France so I’ve experienced the Shinkansen and the TGV trains. In Japan the concept works because driving is so slow there and flying while fast adds an hour of travel time or more getting and departing the airport. In France the TGV ate up the distance between Paris and Avignon comfortably. Much easier than driving although French train schedules seem to be mostly for amusement.
So do I think that a high speed train could succeed in California? No. The distance isn’t that great and the driving speed is pretty fast. By the time you rent a car at your destination, you haven’t saved much time. In both Japan and France, the train stations are located in busy city districts; you’ll easily be able to take a cab to your hotel et al. I am willing to bet that the stations in California will be on low-cost-to-build sites away from the city. (In Japan at least, the city grew up around the stations with restaurants, department stores, and hotels IN the station.
Too long; didn’t read version: even if the train line were ever completed, it would be inconvenient, people wouldn’t use it, and it would fail.
However:
I rode the Shinkansen during my first visit to Japan, last year. A great system.
The only hiccup I experienced was the complexity of purchasing express tickets at a kiosk, which was made more complicated by the fact that certain routes require the issuance/purchase of two tickets — one for the underlying route, and, another for the express feature.
(In Japan at least, the city grew up around the stations with restaurants, department stores, and hotels IN the station.
The US is dotted with these towns.. Now they are mostly ghost towns or towns on their way to being ghost towns.
America did the train thing. There are abandoned tracks all over the place. And now we do the car thing.
Individualized transport.
And coupled with the fact that Japan is SMALL. The entire island of Japan is ~15% smaller than just the state of California, with over 3x the population. That’s why trains like that work, because the population density is far, FAR higher, and their cities were not built to be efficient for cars.
3, 2, 1, until a leftist judge issues a TRO against Trump!
No more federal funds for State, local or even regional transportation projects. If some jurisdiction wants a tunnel, subway, train, trolley, bus line, bicycle lanes or anything else they can figure out how to fund it themselves. Let the States and Cities/Towns along the ACELA corridor route fully fund Amtrak rail service. The Feds financial involvement should be limited to Interstate road systems and US highways at most. Airports and maybe Seaports should either generate the revenue needed to keep them going or they should get closed down.
How about giving them the $3 billion to turn it into a modest bicycle path?
excellent!!!
that money was going for something else anyways
dinner at french laundry for 85
I have a suggestion for all that land and cement. Think linear skateboard parks.
If it went from LA to Vegas, it /might/ have been sustainable, but LA to Frisco is just nonsense.
It was even going to make it all the way to SF. It would stop short in San Jose. They couldn’t get the track alignment through San Mateo County to connect to SF. It was sold to voters as fraud.
Yep. I’ve voted against everything related to it for years, but the stupid in my state is too strong.
Even LA and Vegas is nonsense. You need a car to get around those cities (LA particularly).
So people were going to take a train just ~250 miles and then rent a car? Idiotic.
CA high speed boondoggle. Bullet train to nowhere. Newscum such a fraud.
Maybe this provides Newsome with another opportunity to build low-income housing (with the former track land), and then have CA taxpayers finance the purchase by illegal aliens. CA legislators would love it.
It was never meant to be completed. It was just an easy way to get money they could spend on other things. There is no way they could have afforded to buy the property needed to run the rail line. Unless of course they had a whole lot of wildfires and bought devalued property. I know that sounds crazy….
I generally like the idea of high speed trains but it’s all in the execution and t doesn’t seem as if this this country can efficiently and frugally execute any large scale public works programs any longer. They are more for unions to grift off of and politicians to grab campaign donation kickbacks. A pity but that is what you get with a democracy or republic.
I was born in SoCal in the late 50s and my wife in the bay area in the late 50s and we met at UCLA in the 70s. Due to business we left the state with our two sons in 96 but still have family and friends all through the state.
Both of us plus our family and friends in the state know this train build is a waste of money. Nothing would get finished. My wife and sons have been back last year in SoCal and the central valley and saw some of the build and it was clearly a bad build. It was good that Trump ended Federal Funding.
distance from la to san francisco…some 350 miles…costs:
Billlllionsss to the taxpayers
tijuana to la about 130 miles……. a few hundred dollars
looks like the illegals are even better at economics than the dems
“This boondoggle, led by the incompetent Governor of California, Gavin Newscum”
One thing you can’t deny — Trump has raised the level of official political discourse in this country tremendously.
The intelligent alternative to the slow train to nowhere would be to improve 15 so that people could safely drive 100 mph on it. Then improve the freeway from I5 to LA and SF to I5. This would be cheaper and more useful than the train.