Bullet Train(s) -- An Update -- January 3, 2025

Locator: 44601BULLETTRAIN.

Just like "my favorite chart," I have "my favorite project."

The California Bullet Train.

The most recent update: link here. I've purposely left the internal links alone in case this article disappears.

The proposed San Francisco to Los Angeles line, managed since 1996 by the California High-Speed Rail Authority, has a checkered history. Estimated costs have ballooned from $33 billion in 2008 to up to nearly $128 billion in 2024. The authority’s 2008 business plan described a system carrying more than 90 million passengers across an 800-mile network annually by 2030; its latest 2024 business plan now projects 28.4 million riders along a 494-mile network by 2040 — if it can find the money to continue building. “We have some significant financial challenges that are ahead of us,” said Anthony Williams, a member of the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s board of directors and director of public policy for Amazon in California.

Delays, cost overruns and management issues came to the fore in a 2018 report from the California state auditor. It faulted the authority for over-reliance on consultants, poor contract management and high turnover among its contract managers. When Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, came into office in 2019, he said in his first state-of-the-state address, “The project, as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long.” He backed away from the aspiration of linking San Francisco, LA, Sacramento and San Diego, committing only to a smaller project in the state’s Central Valley. That’s where construction is underway now, between Bakersfield and Merced, California.

“Historically, doing this kind of thing has never been easy,” said Williams. “We also had some challenges at the beginning about how to get it right.”

Meanwhile, the Brightline West high-speed rail, Las Vegas to the far north side of the LA metro area, is on schedule to be completed within the next three years or so. The best thing about this project: you can drink on your way to Las Vegas, and sober up on the way home.

Brightline West began construction in April. Its 218-mile line from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, California, about 42 miles east of Los Angeles Union Station, will mainly run in the median of Interstate 15, with intermediate stops in Victor Valley and Hesperia, California. At Rancho Cucamonga, it will connect with commuter railroad Metrolink for those continuing on to other Los Angeles-area destinations. Constructing the line along an existing transportation corridor eased the permitting process and allowed the federal environmental review to speed through. Brightline West aims to complete construction in 2028.

Meanwhile, the Dallas-to-Houston high speed rail is still being considered. Right now, that project looks like a solution to problem that doesn't exist.