Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened Wednesday to pull federal grants for California’s High-Speed Rail Authority after it spent nearly $7 billion in taxpayer funds over a decade and a half without laying a single foot of track, The New York Post reports.
In a 310-page report, Duffy detailed the missed deadlines and stretched budget for the long-running project. He gave the Golden State’s high-speed rail office until July 11 to respond or lose out on around $4 billion in grants.
“This report exposes a cold, hard truth: CHSRA has no viable path to complete this project on time or on budget,” he said.
“CHSRA is on notice — If they can’t deliver on their end of the deal, it could soon be time for these funds to flow to other projects that can achieve President Trump’s vision of building great, big, beautiful things again,” the Transportation Secretary said in his statement.
“Our country deserves high-speed rail that makes us proud — not boondoogle trains to nowhere.”
To be clear, it goes somewhere. It goes from nowhere in the middle of farmland to Bakersfield prison.
In February, President Trump was astounded by the lack of progress.
“The train that’s being built between Los Angeles and San Francisco is the worst-managed project I think I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some of the worst,” Trump told reporters, asserting that the project is “billions and billions” of dollars over budget.
“We’re going to start a big investigation of that because I’ve never seen anything like it,” he added. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. The worst overruns that there have ever been in the history of our country.”
The authorities in charge boasted of how successful they were because they made more progress than the Dallas and Houston line, which folded. They are now on the opposite side of the environmental crackpots who have way, way too much power.
“It’s insanity,” says Thomas Finkbiner of the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver. “People won’t drive to a train to go someplace. If you are going to drive, why not drive all the way and leave when you want?”
Half of the Inhabitants Are in Prison
The first segment built is in the middle of farmland. It may be the only section to be built due to costs. The first 58 miles of track ends in a small town where half the residents are in prison. It goes from south of Merced to north of Bakersfield in the Central Valley.
The total project cost of the California High-Speed Rail (CAHSR) is now projected at $113 billion, and with needed extras, $158 billion. By the decade’s end, they will have completed 164 miles and only completed 117 miles so far. It’s a train to nowhere, but in the future, there will be lots of transfers to conventional trains available, and it will end in a bus ride.
That’s correct. You will still have to take trains and a bus ride.
The San Francisco Examiner detailed the plans (highlight is mine):
In other words, the Merced station will serve as CAHSR’s gateway to Northern California, connecting high-speed trains to conventional trains bound for Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, and other cities across the region. There would also be buses to Yosemite.
Once CAHSR’s initial operating segment in the Central Valley is complete, it will be possible to take a conventional train from the Bay Area or Sacramento to Merced, where you could transfer to a high-speed train. From there, in about 1½ hours, you’d be in Bakersfield.
The situation on the other end of the high-speed line wouldn’t be as smooth, at least not initially. After arriving in Bakersfield, riders would need to take a bus the final two hours to Los Angeles. The drive from Bakersfield to Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo is about 2½ hours.
It would still be a slog, but the introduction of high-speed rail in the Central Valley would cut down considerably on travel time between the Bay Area and Southern California. The train and bus journey from Oakland to Los Angeles, currently about 8 hours and 40 minutes, would decline to about 7 hours with smooth transfers. In addition, trains are expected to run twice as frequently once the initial leg of high-speed rail is up and running.
I have a suggestion: DRIVE! We hope you enjoyed this article about your wasted tax dollars. We’re trying to make insanity fun again.
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Thank you for this! It is one of the millions of sewers that our dollars have fallen through without out knowledge.
These politicians think our money is their money and they can do whatever they want with it. They’re narcissists. Isn’t the amount of corruption shocking? I keep thinking they can’t shock me any longer and they can and do.
The crooks have no shame, people with a conscience would have cancelled it long ago. The state elites wanted to have a party train to shoot between LA and Sacramento.
Duffy is far too slow on this.
Typical Democrat boondoogle, paid for by us. It is in fact theft.
The ‘establishment’s’ duty it seems is to create ways to screw you out of your hard earned money so they can literally ‘piss’ it against the wall and their pals in the legacy’s job is to make you love it…