California's high-speed rail faces a do-or-die moment

"In 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom used his first State of the State address to "level about the high-speed rail." The Los Angeles-to-San Francisco project "would cost too much and, respectfully, take too long," he said at the time. Newsom was taking issue with a plan first laid out in 2008 that promised a 2 hour 40 minute high-speed rail journey between S.F. and L.A., funded by a $10 billion bond."

"Now the newly instated CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, Ian Choudri, is imploring Newsom and the state legislature to reverse course once again. Choudri is publicly declaring what has been intuitively obvious to anyone with the vaguest sense of the state's geography: Merced to Bakersfield is not a great high-speed-rail corridor. A politically and economically viable system needs to connect the state's major population centers. It needs to make good on what voters were promised in 2008 when the project was introduced."

In 2019 Governor Gavin Newsom judged the original S.F.–L.A. high-speed rail plan too costly and too slow to deliver the promised service. The 2008 design pledged a 2 hour 40 minute trip funded partly by a $10 billion bond, but travel-time targets and underestimated initial funding made the full line impractical. California redirected investment to a 170-mile Central Valley segment between Merced and Bakersfield. New California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri is urging a shift back toward connecting major population centers to honor the original S.F.–L.A. promise. The state extended funding at about $1 billion per year through 2045, but further political and financial work remains.

Read at Fast Company