California high-speed rail struggles to secure funding as costs soar past $100 Billion

Sacramento, California – After more than a decade of delays and ballooning costs, California’s high-speed rail project — once hailed as a transformative transportation solution — is still searching for a path forward. The train, which promises to shuttle passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in under three hours, may finally find the private investment it desperately needs — but only if the state agrees to repay investors, the project’s chief executive said this week.

Ian Choudri, who took over as CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority in August, acknowledged the challenges facing the nation’s most ambitious infrastructure project. “We started this one, and we are not succeeding,” Choudri told the Associated Press. “Fix all the issues, get the funding stabilized, and demonstrate to the rest of the world that when we decide we want to do it, we actually will do it.”

Voters first approved $10 billion in bonds for the project in 2008, with the promise that trains would be running by 2020. Now, five years past that goal, no tracks have been laid, and the project is estimated to cost more than $100 billion — triple the original budget. About $13 billion has already been spent, largely from state funds and the state’s cap-and-trade program. Roughly one-quarter of funding has come from the federal government, which may now be in jeopardy under a potential Trump administration return.

“The managers of the project were in trouble from the very beginning because they never had stable, predictable financing,” said Lou Thompson, former chair of the state’s high-speed rail peer review group. Without federal backing, he added, the project would face a major reckoning.

Choudri is now negotiating with Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers on a plan to attract private investors. He’s urging them to create a mechanism that would repay investors over time, possibly with interest. While some investors expressed interest earlier this year, they reportedly need state guarantees before committing funds.

Meanwhile, construction has progressed slowly. Of the 119 miles under construction in the Central Valley, only 22 miles are close to being ready for tracks — and even that milestone won’t be reached until next year. Choudri’s vision for the next two decades includes expanding the line to Gilroy in the north and Palmdale in the south, though each extension would still require time-consuming transfers to reach downtown San Francisco or Los Angeles.

Critics argue the project may never be completed. Republican state Sen. Tony Strickland, vice chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, criticized the project’s lack of progress: “We’ve now spent billions of dollars and really no tracks have been laid.”

Doug Verboon, chair of the Kings County Board of Supervisors, said the biggest disappointment belongs to the project’s earliest supporters. “It doesn’t seem to me like the state government is in a hurry to finish it,” he said.

Choudri plans to present a revised budget and timeline to lawmakers this summer, in hopes of reigniting momentum behind a project that still aspires to reshape California’s future.