(The Center Square) – The California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Board of Directors talked Wednesday morning about the ballooning $126.2 billion projected price tag for what many call a boondoggle.
At their meeting, board members deflected blame about what they said is the total cost of the project to date – $15.7 billion. California voters passed a bond measure in November 2008 approving a $9.95 billion bond to finance the high-speed rail project, according to the official voter information guide sent to Californians that year.
The Center Square reported that as of June 2025, no track had been laid. Board members weren't available Wednesday to answer The Center Square's questions about whether track would be laid this year, and the High-Speed Rail Authority staff declined to answer questions.
“There’s so many questions out there from Californians, from Americans, from everybody, about why is this project so hard, why has it fallen behind, how has it gotten so expensive,” board member Emily Cohen said during the meeting. “High-speed Rail [Authority] is not in charge of every component of building this project.”
Cohen added that a funding package that entails $1 billion of funding every year through 2045, subject to the Legislature's approval, is crucial to finishing the high-speed rail project. No legislators were present at Wednesday's meeting except Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced, an ex-officio board member who attended part of the session and did not comment.
“We need our elected officials and we need our constituents to make noise about how important this is for getting this project done,” Cohen said. “High-speed Rail [Authority] does not have control over this. Our elected officials owe Californians this package in a responsible way to get this project done. That’s on them.”
Officials also were concerned about the timeline of finishing construction on the high-speed rail project, saying that more delays mean higher costs.
“This needs to be addressed, and this is a way for how we continue to reduce the taxpayers’ burden, and continue to raise funds through the program,” Ian Choudri, the rail authority's CEO, told the board.
Notably, a draft 2026 business plan released in February, which was slated for discussion during the High-Speed Rail Authority’s Wednesday board meeting, was delayed to the next board meeting in May.
The draft business plan was released months ahead of the High-Speed Rail Authority’s final 2026 business plan, which is due on May 1 of each year.
The business plan also says that the project is estimated to be finished in 2039 and be open for business in 2040 - 20 years past the initial projected timeline California’s voters were told in 2008.
In that draft business plan, officials highlighted an allocation of $1 billion a year through 2045, which would come from the state’s cap-and-trade program, often referred to by state officials as cap-and-invest. Some of that funding will be used to pay for the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment of the high-speed rail, which is currently under construction in the middle of the state. That middle section of the high-speed rail is expected to cost $34.76 billion, according to that draft business plan, and high-speed rail officials said in that business plan that they identified $39.3 billion to pay for that segment of the rail. That leaves an additional $4.5 billion for the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment.
That plan also says that the $1 billion a year allocated to the high-speed rail is dependent on market and regulatory risk that might result in less than $1 billion a year being generated from the state’s cap-and-trade program, which the plan calls greenhouse gas reduction funds.
Another report issued in March by the High-Speed Rail Authority projects that the completion of the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment will cost less than what the authority projected in its draft business plan released only one month earlier. In the March report, the authority projected that the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment would cost $31.56 billion, $3.2 billion less than projected in February.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, who has been critical of California’s high-speed rail project, did not respond to The Center Square for a request for an interview on Wednesday. Duffy was instrumental in withdrawing $4 billion in federal funds that was originally slated to go to the high speed rail from the Federal Railroad Administration in 2025. The cancellation of those federal dollars led to the California Department of Justice suing the federal government, although that lawsuit was eventually dismissed.
In February, Gov. Gavin Newsom said California is moving ahead with high-speed rail thanks to the completion of the southern railhead facility in Kern County.
