The last time we reported on California’s high-speed rail project to nowhere, my colleague Mary Chastain noted that President Donald Trump and his team had cancelled federal funding and were investigating where all the grant money for this fiasco had gone.
In an attempt to recover from this embarrassment and salvage some credibility ahead of the 2028 presidential campaign season, California Gov. Gavin Newsom portrayed the high‑speed rail as entering a “track‑laying” phase, emphasized Central Valley investments, and framed the project as proof that U.S. high‑speed rail is achievable despite past delays and cost overruns.
State and local officials framed the milestone as evidence of tangible progress on the nation’s only high-speed rail system under construction, with more than 80 miles of guideway and 58 structures completed in the Central Valley.”Newsom joined community leaders and construction workers to celebrate the completion of the Southern Railhead Facility in Kern County—a major milestone that allows California to begin receiving and staging materials needed to install high-speed rail track and systems along the California high-speed rail corridor,” the governor’s office said in a news release.The governor called the moment “another critical step in the track‑laying stage,” saying California was demonstrating that a U.S. high‑speed rail network “can be done.”
As of mid‑2025, about $13.8–14.6 billion has been spent on the project, and the original vision marketed around 2008 assumed the full Los Angeles–San Francisco system would be operating between 2020 and 2030, with the “last rail” effectively laid by about 2030.
Desperate to change the narrative from abject failure, California High-Speed Rail leaders are now promoting a plan to market a relocated Merced high‑speed rail station as a “gateway to Yosemite”.
Even then, there would be a 70-mile bus ride between the train station and the national park.
California’s flailing High-Speed Rail project is undergoing yet another marketing smokescreen, with soaring costs leading officials to pitch a pipe dream of bullet trains depositing riders at Yosemite National Park.Facing ballooning costs and missed deadlines, the boondoggle – now estimated to cost well over $100 billion if it’s ever completed – has state rail officials and Central Valley leaders floating a plan to shift the future Merced station out of downtown and rebrand it as a Yosemite access point.However, the newly proposed station, which would reportedly be about four miles southeast of the originally proposed station in downtown Merced, would still require bus shuttles to ferry tourists 70 miles to trailheads.“This is just gaslighting,” Assemblymember David Tangipa (R-Fresno) said. “Their model is just to rename it and let’s make everyone feel good.”
Apparently, $1 billion could be saved by this move!
According to reporting by The San Francisco Chronicle, California High‑Speed Rail Authority officials began scouting alternative station locations in late 2025 as part of an effort to reduce costs, speed up construction, and move away from an earlier proposal that would have bypassed Merced entirely.When Peter Whippy, chief of external affairs at the California High‑Speed Rail Authority, presented the southeast station proposal to Merced City Council on January 12, he said the change would streamline construction and lower costs, a strategy known in the industry as “value engineering,” per The Chronicle.A relocated station could save at least $1 billion, according to officials involved in the discussions….Under the concept, the station would not be located inside Yosemite National Park.Any connection to the park would rely on additional ground transportation, such as buses, to carry passengers from the station to Yosemite Valley.
It might be better if the project developers focused on real engineering rather than “value engineering”.
Truly, this monstrosity will be the cherry on top of Newsom’s failure sundae.
Instead of a sleek express to Yosemite, Californians are getting a 70‑mile bus transfer and a billion‑dollar game of “rebrand and pretend.” At this point, “High‑Speed Rail to Yosemite” looks less like a gateway to granite cathedrals and more like a slow, expensive mule train to further waste, fraud, and fiscal abuse.
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