California high-speed trains

[HONDO74]

Newsom wants to see high-speed trains for Merced-Bakersfield, puts brakes on SF-LA vision
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/ar ... 53610.html

Gov. Gavin Newsom is promising a more realistic approach, greater accountability, and a change in leadership for California’s embattled high-speed rail project, announcing significant changes in his first State of the State address Tuesday in Sacramento.

But Newsom indicated that anything beyond the construction work now under way in the San Joaquin Valley will be on hold until “more federal funding and private dollars” become available to help pay for the project.

When California voters first approved Proposition 1A, a $9.9 billion bond measure for high-speed rail in 2008, plans called for a first phase of a statewide system to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, by way of the Valley, with 220 mph electric trains. A second phase was to extend the routes to Sacramento and San Diego.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority estimated last year that it would cost about $77.3 billion to build its initial 520-mile phase from San Francisco to Los Angeles by way of Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley. And that’s before considering a future second phase that extends the lines north to Sacramento and south to the Inland Empire and San Diego – sections for which no cost estimates or schedule forecasts have been offered by the rail authority.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Meh....