To make matters worse, and the project even more expensive, the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s (CHSRA) February 2023 update reduced the initial estimate of future ridership by 25 percent. Of course, there is no timeline for when, if ever, a single line of the project might be completed. Completing a line between Los Angeles and San Francisco is now expected to cost $100 billion, three times greater than the initial projected budget for the entire project. The original plan would have connected Los Angeles to San Francisco, but completing just the Bakersfield-Merced line will cost $35 billion, higher than the original $33 billion budget for the entire system. That information likely would have made a difference in the vote to approve the initial $9.95 billion bond for the project. The LAO found the plan lacked important details including information on train capacity, the point at which the project would break even, and where funding would come from. In 2009, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) released a report on the business plan for the rail system, which was supposed to have been released before voters considered the project at the polls. Since its inception, the high-speed rail project has been beset by a lack of transparency. To make matters worse, the latest cost estimate to complete just one section of the rail project, a 171-mile stretch between Bakersfield and Merced, exceeds the original cost estimate for the entire 800-mile project. Three years after the original projected completion date, no routes have been finished. When Californians voted in 2008 to provide $9.95 billion in taxpayer funds for the construction of a high-speed rail system that they were told would be done by 2020.
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