Crazy Expensive Train

What to Know: Now that California Gov. Gavin Newsom has put an end to an overpriced high-speed rail project, the federal government wants its contribution to the boondoggle back.

“In a letter to California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Brian P. Kelly on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Transportation outlined the government’s reasons for pulling funding,” NBC News reports. “The state has not come up with its own promised funding, will miss a 2022 completion target and has recently reconfigured the project outside the bounds of a federal pact for funding, railroad chief Ronald L. Batory wrote. The federal department will ‘de-obligate’ $928,620,000 in promised cash, but California will be given a chance to argue its case, Batory said in the letter. He also said the Trump administration is ‘exploring all available legal options’ to recover $2.5 billion in past federal grants for the project.”

The TPPF Take: From its inception, the high-speed rail project overpromised and then failed to deliver.

“The project’s estimated costs quickly almost tripled from the $35 billion promised to the voters to $98 billion,” says TPPF’s Chuck DeVore. “And the train’s expected travel time slowed considerably, while the estimated passenger ticket prices more than doubled, making the trip slower and more expensive than a direct flight on Southwest Airlines (at a cost of $59) from L.A. to San Francisco.”

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