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California High-Speed Rail Price Tag Jumps To $231 Billion (kmph.com) 199

Posted by BeauHD from the would-you-look-at-that dept.
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 writes: California's long-delayed high-speed rail project is now facing renewed scrutiny after state leaders revealed a dramatically higher price tag, now estimated at roughly $231 billion, nearly seven times the original $33 billion projection approved by voters in 2008. The revised figures have reignited talks in Sacramento over whether the project can realistically be completed, how long it will take, and whether the state can continue to fund it at this scale.

Senator Strickland pointed to comments from Lou Thompson, former chair of the California High-Speed Rail Authority peer review group, who recently criticized the latest draft business plan. Thompson wrote that the 2026 draft plan "has reached a dead end," arguing that the project has drifted far from its original vision due to escalating costs, delays, and unfunded gaps. Under current projections, assuming funding and construction proceed as planned, service between San Francisco and Bakersfield could begin around 2033, while the full Los Angeles to San Francisco connection could extend to 2040.

California High-Speed Rail Price Tag Jumps To $231 Billion More | Reply

California High-Speed Rail Price Tag Jumps To $231 Billion

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  • $231 Billion (Score:5, Funny)

    by NaCh0 ( 6124 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2026 @03:09PM (#66118772) Homepage

    How much track have they laid for the $231 billion?

    Maybe they can run on this current segment of new track until they figure out why cost overruns are happening.

    California has some of the best and brightest in government so this seems like a good plan to be responsible stewards of the US taxpayer.

    • Re:$231 Billion (Score:5, Informative)

      by ichthus ( 72442 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2026 @03:29PM (#66118810) Homepage
      Here's a map [wikipedia.org] of the progress made since the project was launched 18 years ago.

      Not to worry, I'm sure the new billionaire tax [slashdot.org], if approved, will cover any remaining cost.

      • Abundance (Klein and Thompson book) on this (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Paul Fernhout ( 109597 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2026 @04:57PM (#66118998) Homepage

        The book "Abundance" has an entire section on the failure of high speed rail in California despite ldecades-long government support at all levels. In general, the argument they make is that regulations created in previous generations (to avoid the worst excesses of reckless construction) now get in the way of creating solutions to today's issues like a need for clean energy, improved transportation, and affordable housing. The authors claim the book is written "by liberals, for liberals" and there whole point is to show how a previous generation of "liberals" made it impossible for this generation of "liberals" to get anything done. This also happens in conjunction with conservatives who stop liberal projects by using laws liberals created, since it is much easier to stop things using the law than to make them happen. As another example, the authors say it is common for liberals to do things like put up signs in their yards that say they stand with the homeless while simultaneously voting for zoning policies to defend their property values by making it impossible to build affordable housing (including things like rooming houses, which are often prevented by minimum lot size requirements and also minimum parking area requirements for occupants who generally don't own cars).

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
        "Abundance is a nonfiction book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson published by Avid Reader Press in March 2025. The book examines the reasons behind the lack of progress on ambitious projects in the United States, including those related to affordable housing, infrastructure, and climate change. It became a New York Times Bestseller. Klein and Thompson argue that the regulatory environment in many liberal cities, while well intentioned, stymies development. ..."

        • There is also the problem of maintaining approval over the duration of a project. If voters approved something and couldn't ever be messed with then things would proceed more smoothly. But if at any moment its popularity drops below 50% suddenly it gets defunded and dies and is nearly impossible to revive.

          I've seen several infrastructure jobs suffer this fate. It gets approved, then during planning and development voters change their mind and the project is shutdown. Then a couple years later voters ch

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          As another example, the authors say it is common for liberals to do things like put up signs in their yards that say they stand with the homeless while simultaneously voting for zoning policies to defend their property values by making it impossible to build affordable housing (including things like rooming houses, which are often prevented by minimum lot size requirements and also minimum parking area requirements for occupants who generally don't own cars).

          Worth pointing out the elephant in the room, which is that not all homeless don't own cars; some of them live in their cars. By allowing developers to build structures with inadequate parking, it creates an undue burden on the folks at the margins, who often have to own a car to survive (getting to work), but still can't afford to live in a place that lets them own one (because of parking fees or higher rent for units that come with parking).

          So it's not nearly as black-and-white as your sentence implies, I

    • *sigh* You just...don't understand the finer points about job creation. Economies aren't supposed to create value, they're supposed to create busy hands. You need money to do that, and that has to be taken from other busy hands. The government just needs to repeal the second law of thermodynamics and it will all work out.

      Cheese...Don't you know anything?

    • Re:$231 Billion (Score:5, Informative)

      by ObliviousGnat ( 6346278 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2026 @05:01PM (#66119024)

      How much track have they laid for the $231 billion?

      "You've raised this pig since birth and how many pounds of pork have you harvested so far?"

      Only $13.8 billion has been spent so far, not $231 billion. Here [buildhsr.com] is a list of structures (bridges, viaducts, etc.) that have been built, and most of the land for the initial operating segment has been acquired. The reason why it's taking so long is because the funding is trickling in very slowly.

      • I know right, just $13.8 billion is nothing, I tell you! It cost that much just to rebuild I-45 through Houston!

      • That's not at all why, it's because of red tape. It takes over two years just to get permitting to build a single family home in California. How long do you think a project like this will take? Somebody linked a map earlier showing the "progress", that alone gives you a few strong hints.

      • They're not actually spending the money fast enough and it's causing it to grow due to interest but every headline is saying how the project is gonna cost more not realizing the already allocated funds are sitting in a bank accumulating interest.

        On top of that the bridges they've been building are over existing rail and roads infrastructure. A big chunk of the HSR path is shared with other train lines already in operating so a lot of the new infrastructure is over this existing rail.

    • California has some of the best and brightest in government so this seems like a good plan to be responsible stewards of the US taxpayer.

      California may have some bright people in government but they sure don't get the headlines. It seems to mostly be staffed by opportunists, idealogues, and useful idiots.

      I've lived in California for close to 40 years. I've had one representative I was impressed by (Tom Campbell). The rest have been fools I'm glad I don't have to spend any quality time with.

      I take that back a little. Chuck Reed was a good San Jose mayor. Pat Dando was a good city council member. So that's three.

    • How much track have they laid for the $231 billion?

      To be fair, I think that's the expected total price tag. They haven't spent that much yet. But none is the answer. Not a single mile of track is ready. I think they've built a bunch of overpasses and track beds, that's about it.

      I keep wondering just how long we'll ignore the clear language of the proposition which authorized this money pit. It was very clear: LA to SF, in under two hours, with no more than $10 billion of state funding.

    • They already run trains on/along this segment, as the high speed rail was largely built alongside the existing freight rails that Amtrak already runs on (routes that CA already subsidizes for 25 cents per person per mile just to operate the trains on the existing tracks). The main difference is the high speed rail having to avoid at-grade crossings so much of it built as a long bridge above street crossings.

  • I hope that's because of land acquisition cost and not engineering incompetence?

    Maybe a tunnel, or parallel tunnels (for safety and cost since small diameter boring is exponentially cheaper), would work instead?

  • You know I'm happy for the UK to not be #1 in the world in this regard.

  • Here in the UK the price tag for HS2 which is approx 100 miles of (very) high speed track has hit £100 billion and climbing.

  • I'm guessing you could have called all of those riders a cab for less money.

    (Or bus.)

  • Why is this only a problem in the USA? For instance in Japan I could traverse the country from top to bottom via train.

    • Density
      Both population, and the person asking this question

    • Why is this only a problem in the USA? For instance in Japan I could traverse the country from top to bottom via train.

      The infrastructure cost or the perception of public transit? My experience with public transit via train (SunRail) has certainly given me some insight into why most Americans aren't fans:

      There is the well-known "last mile" problem. I deal with it by bringing my e-scooter with me, but even this solution isn't really scalable as there isn't enough room on the train for everyone to bring a bike or scooter with them. If your destination isn't within walking distance of a station and you didn't bring your own

      • This pretty much sums it up. Even when I do use public transportation, I tend to drive my car to a few stops from my actual destination and about the only time I do use the light rail system we have is when I'm going downtown, where the stops actually are walking distance to my destination.

        With that said, I think I've done that twice in 20 years...Parking just isn't so expensive that I'm willing to waste all the excess time to save the difference.

      • My experience with public transit via train (SunRail) has certainly given me some insight into why most Americans aren't fans

        That's not really why Americans aren't fans per-se, so much as you've got bad public transport. I mean yeah I love trains but I'm not a fan of bad public transport either. I had a look at the SunRail map, and... well, why are almost none of the stops near anything?! It looks like it's been designed entirely around driving.

  • Time to call it quits.

  • Having to negotiate with every land owner along the route and every local community that the train will pass through/near is a major part of these cost overruns. If they just eminent domained the whole damn route from the start it would have been far faster and probably cheaper.

    • Having to negotiate with every land owner along the route and every local community that the train will pass through/near is a major part of these cost overruns.

      But think of the lawyers! How will they afford that third vacation home?

      • California is full of rich people that have lawyers and are lawyers. Rich Democrats are still rich folks and rich folks just aren't like the rest of us. They are rich! In American, that makes you better then everyone else.

    • I've watched several trials here in the Central Valley. One of the main issues is Sacramento sends appraisers from metro areas to appraise farm land. They appraiser starts with, well, there are not any utilities near by, the nearest sewer hookup is 6 miles and there are not any access points, etc, etc. The jury who is full of farmers all but do a face plant and then award ten times what the state/authority had appraised each acre of Almonds for.

  • This works all over Europe and Japan, for example. Did they not get expertise from people that have done it?

    • Re:What is the problem? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BetterSense ( 1398915 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2026 @04:29PM (#66118936)
      "they" did consult with SNCF (the French national train company), and SNCF told them to build a train between LA and SF. I.e. connect the biggest population centers. That's the logic in places like France: You build where you will serve the most people possible, sell the most tickets possible, get the most ridership possible, for the shortest distance, and then you build out from there.

      For better or worse, that logic doesn't work in America. The American logic is: LA and SF already have (limited) rail connections, but other cities in CA are completely unconnected by rail. Also, I5 is an infrastructure crisis, because it's completely overloaded and there's no solution, and a train between LA and SF wouldn't do anything to solve the I5 crisis. Also, America has broken land policies, and acquiring land between LA and SF is just impossible. Also, taking tax money from the whole state and spending it on infrastructure only for in the biggest cities, isn't politically popular. In France, it's just understood that cities get more amenities than rural areas, and that's the way it is. But in America, we like to shovel pork projects at our rural areas out of some kind of sentimental obligation to prop them up. So you have to bribe rural areas and secondary cities to get things done.

      So, for better worse, the voters of California approved CAHSR only on the condition that it connect the inland cities. There's a legitimate logic to it. It's just American logic and not French logic.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Ah, yes. France is pretty special in that everything has to connect to Paris. That is not the general situation.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Jack9 ( 11421 )

          >> for better worse, the voters of California approved CAHSR only on the condition that it connect the inland cities. There's a legitimate logic to it. It's just American logic and not French logic.

          > Ah, yes. France is pretty special in that everything has to connect to Paris. That is not the general situation.

          That wasn't the point being made and makes no sense in context.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by sarren1901 ( 5415506 )

        I know as a San Diegan that will NEVER ride this train, I already resent the idea of having my tax dollars pay for it. If I'm going to SF, I'll just drive the 8 hours. Cheaper then flying and I'll still have a car for when I'm actually in SF.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rskbrkr ( 824653 )
      The problem is regulatory burden, including requirements for numerous environmental impact studies, requirements to use union labor, requirements to use minority/female owned companies, and incompetent individuals running the project. A story today reveled today that the project agreed to making a $1 billion dollar detour to avoid coming too close to the former headquarters and grave of a labor leader. It was recently discovered that labor leader had r@ped multiple women and underaged girls. I'm not even

  • when California has to jump through the hoops setup by - you guessed it - California. Most other reasonable entities would say, how can we reduce costs.

  • We don't need high speed rail. We need housing, more housing makes living more affordable for everyone.

    $231 Billion could house a lot of homeless people.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by BetterSense ( 1398915 )
      Not really defending California, because their housing policies are broken and that's easy to see. Prop 13 should be considered one of the worst laws in the history of the country.

      But housing and transportation are linked, and always have been. That's why cities and villages are built along rivers. That's why, including in California, companies used to build streetcars...then they would build houses along the streetcar lines. And often they would do a rugpull and fail to maintain the streetcar, but that's a

      • The rail project is behind because of all of the people fighting it and having special requirements. Housing along that same path will have the same problem, especially affordable housing.

        Its fine to invest in transportation, but so far that is not what is happening here. We talk about it but cant seem to accomplish it. We'll spend a trillion by the time its done.

      • Don't worry, the state is gradually eroding away prop13 protections. It won't lead to affordable housing but it should lead to higher government tax revenue to use on random stuff that doesn't serve most the population.

        The NIMBY-ness is strong in California. Anytime you want to add housing anywhere, people use California's own environment laws against the project. It's a great way to hold things up for a couple of years and developers just can't stand around doing nothing for that long.

        Liberals with houses

  • They built ALL their lines for a quarter of that.

  • The underlying idea of a high-speed connector between SF and LA wasn't a bad idea. The distance is just right for such a project and could help bridge the divide between Northern and Southern California. Likewise, the engineering and construction doesn't seem to be an issue. Plenty of companies with experience in high-speed rail projects like this that can build for a reasonable price.

    The problem is regulatory paralysis. When every mile of track needs 23 environmental review hearings and 11 eminent domain l

  • This just proves how much they need the billionaire tax.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      They'll have to shake down the homeless for their pocket change to get this thing built.

  • A reminder that California is in the process of removing his name from streets and school because it was recently reveled he had r@ped multiple women and underaged girls.

    Through letters and stakeholder meetings, the Chavez Center and Foundation successfully lobbied for a bespoke alignment called the “refined Cesar Chavez National Monument design option,” which moved the track about three-quarters of a mile away from the monument boundary. Shaped as a wide curve rather than a straight line, the route would pass over viaducts and access roads and through two tunnels, each one longer than a mile and a half.

    To build it, the authority would need more track, more tunneling, and — on top of everything — a massive dirt berm, stretching about 1,700 feet, to conceal the train and blend with the desert hills.

    All of those elements combined added $815 million to the project tab in “2020 dollars” — more than $1 billion today, when adjusted for inflation.

    Add a $1 billion detour for California high-speed rail to Cesar Chavez’s legacy [sfchronicle.com]

  • The. USA is terminally screwed. It CANNOT cost this much or this long to build infrastructure. The Big Dig in Boston cost as much and took longer than the Chunnel. California's non-existent high speed rail has cost more than the entire rail system in France.

    While fighting a World War, the USA built so many miles of railroad that the USA doubled the world total miles of rail. Now, we cannot build in a straight line across a desert.

  • Just proof that AMERICAN government is bad.

    Other governments all over the world manage to build rail systems, it's just here in North America that we're deeply useless.

  • We approved $10 billion, not $33 billion.

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