2 responses to “High-Cost Rail – Part 165 Bonta retreats”

1. Joe

   January 1, 2026

   Here is the latest non-post-mortem from the SF Comicle’s Rachel Swan. The lasted ploys are to bribe private investors with adjacent land for development (just how much eminent domain land did they take?) and rely on gamblers. I kid you not!

   High-speed rail isn’t dead — yet

   Trump yanked more than $4 billion from California’s high-speed rail project this year, a form of desertion that state officials finally accepted in December, when they dropped a lawsuit seeking to salvage the money. For the time being, rail administrators have focused on the first phase of construction, 119 miles of track through the Central Valley. They relentlessly highlight the jobs and housing it will bring.

   While skeptics worry the bullet train line could become mummified as it continues to lose funding and political support, the head of California’s High-Speed Rail Authority is doggedly courting private capital to get the first section built. Some boosters of high-speed rail see public-private partnerships as a viable solution for infrastructure that’s become too expensive for the state to manage. Once the trains are running, companies stand to profit by developing real estate around stations or potentially operating tunnels and charging for trains that pass through.

   At the same time, the Rail Authority has championed a new long-term plan for its long-gestating railway: Extend it south from Merced to Palmdale, where high-speed rail could link with two other bullet train lines, the High Desert Corridor in Los Angeles and the privately owned Brightline West route from Rancho Cucamonga to Las Vegas. The map for this interstate network strays from the original concept of whisking business travelers 800 miles from SoMa to Anaheim. But it presents a tantalizing form of transportation for gamblers.
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   Please disregard the fact that such a route change was not in the original Proposition and should be returned to the voters for approval…….nothing to see here, move along.

2. A tired neighbor

   January 12, 2026

   FYI – the Bakersfield to Palmdale section (Phase 1) is already part of the CAHSR plan, just not part of the “Initial Operating Section (IOS)”, and currently only the IOS is funded. Not saying we shouldn’t get another vote at this debacle, just that it was/is part of the original Proposition approval. Although….. I thought we voted (18 years ago?) on whether to connect SF to LA by the fastest, most direct, cheapest path, i.e. along I-5, and not whether to fund a jobs, get rich land-grab, and “commuter” project connecting the central valley along Hwy 99.