SACRAMENTO (CBS SF) — Governor Gavin Newsom dropped a bombshell early in his State of the State address Tuesday, announcing that
California would abandon the state’s plan for a high-speed rail connection between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
During the address, he said that while he respects the vision of his predecessors Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, “…there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A. I wish there were.”
“Let’s be real,” Newsom continued. “The current project, as planned, would cost too much and respectfully take too long. There’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency.”
Newsom did say that the state would continue work to
finish the high-speed rail link between Merced and Bakersfield, dismissing critics who would call it a “train to nowhere” and citing the need to reduce air pollution in the Central Valley and tap into the region’s economic potential.
The governor said the state would continue the “regional projects north and south” with the goal of completing the Phase 1 environmental work in addition to establishing new transparency measures that would “hold contractors and consultants accountable to explain how taxpayer dollars are spent.”
The Governor’s office later clarified that Newsom was still fully committed to building a high-speed rail connection between San Francisco and Los Angeles, despite there not currently being a path to do so.
In 2008, voters gave the state permission to issue $10 billion dollars in bonds to finance the project, which was supposed to stretch from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Three days after Election Day, the High Speed Rail Authority released its 2008 Business Plan estimating the project would cost $33 billion with a completion date of 2020.
For ten years, the project has been beset by ballooning costs, dozens of lawsuits, budget overruns, and scathing audit reports.
In 2011 the HSR Authority estimated the project would cost $98 billion. After a public outcry, in 2012 the Authority scaled back plans. Instead of a dedicated high-speed rail line, the trains would be integrated into regional rail lines for $68 billion. In 2018, the cost estimate for that “blended” plan jumped to $77 billion dollars.
All along, the HSR Authority has anticipated private investors would help defray the costs but none have stepped forward.
Newsom also said that he would be making his Economic Development Director Lenny Mendonca as the next chair of the High Speed Rail Authority, stating that “at the end of the day, transportation and economic development must go hand in hand.”
That segment will be completed, but there is simply not enough money for the remainder of the project. As of December 2018, the Hoover Institute estimated the HSR Authority had $12.7 billion on hand.
“Let’s just get something done,” Newsom told the audience. “We’ll connect the revitalized Central Valley to other parts of the state, and continue to push for more federal funding and private dollars.”
The state got $3.5 billion in federal funding to complete the Merced to Bakersfield line. If it is not complete by 2022, that money must be refunded.
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“I am not interested in sending $3.5 billion in federal funding that was allocated to this project back to Donald Trump,” Newsom said.
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