Saving California from Itself

In 2012 I expressed skepticism about the just-approved high-speed rail (HSR) project:

But they're going to start in the middle, i.e., the Central Valley, where the labor and land are cheaper and environmental obstacles less restrictive. After the expenditure of an estimated $6 billion, HSR will be operational between Fresno (pop. 350,000) and Bakersfield (pop. 500,000) in 2017...

Just to make clear, your humble observer is not in favor of the HSR project. It's expense ($65 billion in today's dollars and $90+ billion, including inflation ) is only defensible under the wildest pie-in-the-sky scenarios. When one looks at the sad history of California construction overruns in projects like the Bay Bridge extension, San Francisco airport, and BART, it is even more improbable that the final cost will be justified, and it won't matter much whether it was built top-down, bottom-up, or middle-out.

Support pillars in Hanford (Merc photo)

13 years later HSR has played out as foreseen: $billions over budget, decade-long delays, and no guaranteed funding to finish it. Even many of its former supporters agree that HSR is a white elephant, but very few have publicly advocated abandoning it.

This time around (he failed to do so in his first term) President Trump will likely be able to kill the project given the weakened state of his opposition:

“The train that’s being built between Los Angeles and San Francisco is the worst-managed project I think I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some of the worst,” Trump told reporters, asserting that the project is “billions and billions” of dollars over budget.

“We’re going to start a big investigation of that, because I’ve never seen anything like it,” he added. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. The worst overruns that there have ever been in the history of our country.”

...The current estimate for linking San Francisco with Southern California is $107 billion. Officials don’t even know how to fully finance Merced-Bakersfield, much less raise the other $72.4 billion they would need.

By pulling the plug President Trump will be saving California from itself, but I doubt anyone in Sacramento will thank him.