California Democrats Ask Buttigieg for Half a Billion Dollars for High-Speed Rail Before Trump Takes

[mystery-ak]

Joel B. Pollak 22 Dec 2024

California Democrats have written to outgoing Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to ask for more than half a billion dollars in funding for an ailing high-speed rail project that President-elect Donald Trump defunded in 2019.

As Breitbart News reported, Trump withheld $1 billion in funding from the project after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) canceled the original project. Newsom had explained to the state legislature that the original plan for a Los Angeles-to-San Francisco “bullet” train “would cost too much and, respectfully, would take too long.” Trump then demanded the state refund the money federal taxpayers had given it — applying the same rules that hold in the private sector.

Newsom resisted, and when President Joe Biden was elected, he restored the funding. Biden also added federal funding to a different high-speed rail project — a Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas train that shows more commercial promise and was originally started by private investors. Trump is unlikely to stop the latter project — but he is unlikely to support the former, which now only plans to connect stations in the interior regions of California.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday:

    Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff joined Reps. Pete Aguilar, D-San Bernardino; Jim Costa, D-Fresno; and Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, on Friday in calling for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to approve $536 million for the project. In a letter addressed to Buttigieg, they called the project “essential.”

    The money would fund design work on the first two segments of the project from Bakersfield to Palmdale (Los Angeles County) and from Gilroy to a junction point in the Central Valley south of Chowchilla (Madera County). Specifically, the money would fund the designing of tunnels through the Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California and through the Pacheco Pass in Northern California.

    …

    California voters initially approved $10 billion in bond funding for the project in 2008. At the time, it was projected to cost $33 billion and be completed by 2020. Sixteen years later, the project has blown past both of those estimates. Its projected costs have soared to between $89 billion and $128 billion. Even under the rosiest projections, no segments will be completed and ready for riders until 2030 at the earliest.

more
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/12/22/california-democrats-ask-buttigieg-for-half-a-billion-dollars-for-high-speed-rail-before-trump/

[PeteS in CA]

Some WTH aspects mentioned in the article:

California voters initially approved $10 billion in bond funding for the project in 2008.

26 years and $10B later, they're just now trying to design two relatively short segments!

... from Bakersfield to Palmdale ...

Bakersfield is not a tiny town, but when it comes to the main destinations - LA, SF, and Sacto - it's in the middle of nowhere, and Palmdale is across some mountains from the Land of LA.

... from Gilroy to a junction point in the Central Valley south of Chowchilla ...

Gilroy is 50 or 60 or ## miles from SF, with a fairly densely built-up area or the Santa Cruz Mountains in between, and Chowchilla (and Madera) is a small town not near, well, any destination.

The whole design of this boondoggle - I voted against the moronic feel-good 2008 bond measure the article mentioned - is stupider than moronic. There is a perfectly usable - and much used - existing rail line through the Coast Range Mountains between the Land of LA, San Jose (= Silicon Valley), and SF, and an existing railway between SF and Sacto. These could have been reinforced to handle high-speed rail at a fraction of the cost of designing and building a whole new line. More moronic than that, as planned, the high-speed rail trains are supposed to stop in several major cities while travelling through the Central Valley. How bleeping high-speed are these trains going to be if they are stopping every 50 or ## miles?

Trump and non-stupid Rs in Congress need to tell Goobernor Noisome and his successor, "Not a damn dime!"

[GtHawk]

Some WTH aspects mentioned in the article:

26 years and $10B later, they're just now trying to design two relatively short segments!

Bakersfield is not a tiny town, but when it comes to the main destinations - LA, SF, and Sacto - it's in the middle of nowhere, and Palmdale is across some mountains from the Land of LA.

Gilroy is 50 or 60 or ## miles from SF, with a fairly densely built-up area or the Santa Cruz Mountains in between, and Chowchilla (and Madera) is a small town not near, well, any destination.

The whole design of this boondoggle - I voted against the moronic feel-good 2008 bond measure the article mentioned - is stupider than moronic. There is a perfectly usable - and much used - existing rail line through the Coast Range Mountains between the Land of LA, San Jose (= Silicon Valley), and SF, and an existing railway between SF and Sacto. These could have been reinforced to handle high-speed rail at a fraction of the cost of designing and building a whole new line. More moronic than that, as planned, the high-speed rail trains are supposed to stop in several major cities while travelling through the Central Valley. How bleeping high-speed are these trains going to be if they are stopping every 50 or ## miles?

Trump and non-stupid Rs in Congress need to tell Goobernor Noisome and his successor, "Not a damn dime!"

It is not a boondoggle it is a well designed graft, mismanaged intentionally building concrete supports in the middle of nowhere way ahead of any other work, which are now standing as a kind of modern Stonehenge in a path the train will no longer go.

A young man I used to work with got a job a safety  manager on the project and said it was bullshit from the start, but what else would you expect from Gov. Moonbeam and the democrats.