On July 16th, local time, President Trump stated on his social media platform that the federal government will no longer provide any funding for the California High-Speed Rail project.
“The ‘towards nothing’ high-speed rail project is a disaster and severely overbudget,” Trump accused Governor Newsom of incompetence, stating that the project has already cost hundreds of billions of dollars but “never fulfilled its promises and will never be delivered.”
Was $16 billion spent in 2017 without even laying a single track? The first high-speed rail in the United States is mired in a “falling project” dilemma.
The California High-Speed Railway is the first high-speed railway planned by the United States and also the most ambitious green transportation project to date. Since California voters passed the “High-Speed Rail Act” in 2008, the project was designated as connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles—two cities located at opposite ends of the narrow state of California, with a straight distance of about 600 kilometers.
△Conceptual train for the California High-Speed Railway (Archive photo)
A report from the Department of Transportation in early June this year revealed that the California High-Speed Rail project faces issues such as schedule delays and poor management.
“From the passage of the 2008 bill to now, 17 years later, spending $16 billion but not even laying a single track,”
the report stated. It also demanded that the California High-Speed Rail Authority respond by July 11th or face the cancellation of an additional $4 billion in funding.