Gov. Newsom injects reality into Brown’s bullet-train delusion
Gavin Newsom has acknowledged what Jerry Brown refused to: California’s highspeed rail project will cost too much and take too long, and lacks oversight and transparency.
Whew! Finally, some reality from the governor’s office in Sacramento.
Unfortunately, it’s not at all clear that much will substantively change with the state’s bullet-train boondoggle. Newsom, in his State of the State address on Tuesday, said he plans to push forward with construction of the Central Valley leg of the project between Merced and Bakersfield.
But that’s the only leg of the project for which Brown had managed to secure state and federal funding, anyhow. Construction has already started there. And if it were to stop, California would have to return $3.5 billion of federal funding.
Newsom’s reasoning for finishing that section is that he doesn’t want to give President Donald Trump back any money and have nothing to show for more than a decade of work except partially completed structures that currently litter the landscape.
That’s hardly a compelling argument for pushing forward. But chances are that if that dedicated section of track is completed at least it can be turned over to Amtrak for faster traditional train service up and down the state.
Newsom also plans to finish the one part of the high-speed rail plan that makes sense: the regional projects in urban areas in the north and south that can make badly needed improvements to existing commuter service, such as the electrification of the Caltrain line on the Peninsula.
As for the bigger picture, Newsom acknowledged what has been clear for a decade now: There’s no financial means for delivering the project voters were promised in 2008 when they approved bond funding for high-speed rail.
“Right now,” Newsom said, “there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A.”
Newsom’s candor is refreshing after years of delusional talk from Brown and his minion, Dan Richard, the chairman of the state High-Speed Rail Authority, whom Newsom is ousting.
The teeth-gnashing from high-speed rail proponents is predictable. Some are accusing Newsom of abandoning the state’s environmental leadership mantle. They tout highspeed rail as a carbon-emission-cutting transportation panacea.
The problem with that argument is that with each year of delay, as the use of other alternative electric-vehicle modes of transportation increase, the net benefit of the bullet train diminishes.
Moreover, the state’s project has never penciled out. A decade ago, voters were promised a system from San Diego to San Francisco and Sacramento at a cost of $45 billion. Today, the cost estimate is $77 billion just to link San Francisco to Anaheim.
They were told that if voters approved $9.95 billion of seed money, the private sector would rush forward to cover much of the rest. That was fantasy then, and 10 years without a dime from businesses demonstrates that it’s fantasy today.
The only other sources of money so far are the federal funds and a portion of the state’s cap-and-trade revenues from sales of pollution permits — money that could have been better spent on other emission-reduction programs.
So, we applaud Newsom’s candor, his willingness to divorce himself from his predecessor’s bullet-train balderdash. But we’re disappointed that he wants to keep throwing good money after bad in the Central Valley.
Governor, finish that corridor if you must, but not another dime for high-speed rail without a realistic financing plan and, if any public money is required, a vote of the people.
And this time they should be told the truth.