Burying the Bullet Train

The coronavirus has forced everyone to make hard financial choices, both in their business and personal lives. Thr State of California, facing a $54-billion budget deficit, has even put Jerry Brown's bullet train under the microscope.

The state High-Speed Rail Authority now projects the 171-mile stretch [from Merced to Bakersfield] would cost $20 billion to build and lose between $40 million and $90 million a year. Even that assumes millions of people living in the Central Valley each year will ride the train to Merced and then use commuter rail to connect to San Jose.

As economic consultants William Grindley and Bill Warren have pointed out, a round-trip between Bakersfield and San Jose would take 12 hours and 10 minutes and cost $189 without a subsidy and $104 with a subsidy.

Long gone are the dreams of connecting the major population centers of San Francisco and Los Angeles. As we noted last year:

Merced-Bakersfield route (Chron graphic)

Since 2012 we've been commenting on the complicated design, pie-in-the-sky ridership assumptions, and cost overruns of the California high-speed rail project.

On Tuesday Governor Newsom effectively killed the project by announcing that he would only commit to completing the Central Valley line between Merced (pop. 83,000) and Bakersfield (pop. 376,000).

The deadly pandemic that has caused record unemployment and business closures has prevented officials from getting raises ("The four members of the California Citizens Compensation Commission voted unanimously Thursday to leave the salaries as they are"), so you know things are really serious.