Walls closing in on HSR
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CA's embattled high-speed rail project will soon need at least $7 billion in order to move forward. No one knows where the money will come from. KCRA reports.
During a budget hearing focused on transportation in the State Assembly on Wednesday, Helen Kerstein with the California Legislative Analyst's Office told lawmakers the project faces a $7 billion budget gap and the funds need to be secured by next June. If not, Kerstein said it will create yet another delay for plans to finish the project's first segment between Merced and Bakersfield.
"There is no specific plan to meet that roughly $7 billion gap, we also think there is some risk that gap could grow," Kerstein said. "This isn't a way out in the future funding gap. This is a pretty immediate funding gap."
"We have no plan, we have a good likelihood it's going to get worse, and we have a short time to solve the problem," said Assemblyman Steven Bennett, D-Ventura. "That's not a good place for government to put itself into."
The project was originally pitched to voters in 2008 as a $40 billion bullet train that could take riders from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Since then, the price tag for the original vision has swelled to at least $100 billion, and most of the money has yet to materialize.
While the state has spent about $14 billion so far on the project overall, it still needs more than double that amount in order to finish the Merced to Bakersfield line, which project leaders hope to be completed between 2030 and 2033.
The Trump administration earlier this year launched an investigation into the use of about $4 billion in federal funds, which is still underway.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X that his department will continue to investigate the project to determine how federal dollars have been used and whether federal support should continue.
Lawmakers acknowledged the administration could halt future money or try to claw back the dollars. Kerstein told lawmakers the rail authority's incomplete update assumes it will still receive and keep federal dollars.
"The timing of the project review seems totally out of whack with when we need to be making decisions," said Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Irvine. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome."
Meanwhile, State Senate Transportation Committee Chairman David Cortese told KCRA 3 he is hoping to schedule a hearing on the high-speed rail project in May.
"I was in middle school when this happened {referring to HSR vote}," said Assemblymember Alexandra Macedo, R-Tulare, who was elected to the state Assembly in the last election.
"We don't have the time, we don't have the money, we just need to pull the plug on this project," she said. "As the voters passed it in 2008, it's never going to happen."
Read the whole thing here.
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