Written by Michael Palomba
We’ve all heard of it: the high speed rail. You know, the one that was supposed to efficiently transport passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Well, it’s 2020 and even after decades, it still doesn’t exist.
You would think that since there hasn’t been much progress, there hasn’t been much money spent, right? Well, you could not be more wrong.
Initial costs were estimated to be around $33 billion, which is what voters approved when they voted in 2008. However, today it stands around a whopping $80.3 billion. This is after the latest forecast added $1.3 billion to the estimate.
Imagine what that money could do for the states homelessness problem.
Governor Gavin Newsom hinted that the project was going to fail in his first State of the State Address when he said that “the current project, as planned, would cost too much and take too long.” That, however, has not stopped the project from using our tax dollars. As mentioned earlier, the project estimate recently increased by $1.7 billion.
In addition to that, the increase in the estimate still will not lead to the high speed rail keeping its initial promises. It was originally believed that the trip would take around two hours and 40 minutes and cost about $50. Current independent analysis, however, reports that the trip will take around four hours and cost about $81 per person. Going by those figures, it would be much cheaper to drive and only take about one hour longer.
The Sacramento Bee asked Fresno State Institute for Media and Public Trust Executive Director Jim Boren if he thought the project should be scrapped. Boren, who believes the project should continue, said that “it is stunning that a state that leads in so many areas has not been able to move this project ahead with more urgency. You’d think that a state that has gridlock on every one of its freeways would embrace high-speed rail.”
California Political Review analyzes that statement very well, “Those few words tell a story…California is no longer solution-oriented, it’s ideological, and that ideology has let problems pile up over decades because it favors politics over the practical.”
California Democrats need to start grounding themselves in reality. The state has a multitude of problems from homelessness, cost of living, crumbling roads, and much more. The state’s issues need to be handled with practical, common sense solutions before extravagant projects like an $80.3 billion high speed rail are taken on.
