California high-speed rail project stalls amid costly environmental reviews and political ties
Eighteen years after voters approved funding, California’s high-speed rail has built no track, while contractors and politicians have profited from massive environmental paperwork.
Voters approved a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 2008, with contractors contributing tens of thousands of dollars to the measure and a state manager forecasting over 100,000 construction jobs. More than $15 billion later, not a single mile of track exists, and the planned Merced-Bakersfield segment remains unbuilt. The California High Speed Rail Authority’s website hosts over 130,000 pages of environmental-review documents, a burden that has cost taxpayers over $677 million and enriched consulting firms such as HNTB, AECOM, WSP and Parsons Brinckerhoff.
These firms, which were major donors to the ballot initiative, have been paid between $38 million and $101 million for the reviews, while politicians like Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown have received campaign contributions from the same companies. The project’s chief executive, former HNTB employee Ian Choudri, now oversees a plan that may only deliver a train-to-bus transfer, far short of the promised under-three-hour journey.
Why it matters
Taxpayers are funding endless reviews and consulting fees while the promised high-speed rail remains unbuilt.
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