This dumpster fire of a project has earned its nickname of "High Speed Taxpayer Cash Furnace".

So typical of California: utopian promises, exorbitant costs, exceedingly limited results.

They need to stop throwing our money away and kill this project now before we waste another dime on it.

This project is wrong on so many counts it's hard to know where to start.
[See: Web Link for research.] Project management lacks adequate transparency, accountabiity, oversight. Development projected now around $100 billion. Could easily go up to $200 billion. (See: Boston "Big Dig" for good pricing example.). Will take forever to complete. HSR is most expensive train ticket, worldwide. (HSR for the affluent only.) Nonetheless, will need tax-based operational subsidies. Running HSR in very low population (Central Valley) will demonstrate/prove nothing. (Catching flies with a sledge hammer!) Way over-counting of projected ridership. Meanwhile, no major transit upgrades planned for future route between LA and San Diego -- most needed HSR, in most heavily used commute route in the West.

A train to nowhere, costing us billions to employ a few workers, It would be nice to know how much could have been accomplished if these billions had been spent on projects like connecting Bart around the Bay, More than 75% of those workers hail from the Central Valley — about 1,100 head to construction sites daily for jobs that come with health care and hard-to-find stability. For one Central Valley carpenter, working near home for more than three months at a time had been uncommon. This is workfare, Sorry Gavin but you're a numbskull,

Westbrook:

HSR is far more than workfare, it's corruption at the highest levels. This is nothing more than quid pro quo for labor unions and construction companies that contribute large sums of money to democrat candidates.

It is mind boggling that the ill-named "High Speed Rail" Project, which is never going to be High-Speed, is still funded. It will not attract a ridership level that is anywhere near the very bloated forecasts made by the CA bureaucracy. Further, the actual ticket prices will vastly exceed those projected & will be much greater cost than air travel. CA business people & leisure travelers are not going from downtown LA to downtown SF, but rather to/from suburban areas & will require additional transportation at either end. Perhaps the best reason to stop the HSR is that it is a massive environmental disaster! Even HSR supporters admit that the environmental damage from cement, steel, RR equipment manufacture, tree canopy destruction, building electric lines and new electric power generation plants will be a net environmental disaster for greater than 50 years. Many groups have been trying to "repurpose" the $100B+ that we will still spend on HSR to real transportation needs. But, they have no success due to our CA Administration that will not listen to the public!

One solution is to "Send a Message" to the CA HSR bureaucracy by voting on Sept 14th to recall Gov. Newsome. He promised to stop HSR after his election, but has continued to fund it. His recall will go a long way to repurposing the $100B to projects that we need and want!

You are all correct, Including MV and the quid pro quo, I think this will come back to bite Newsom in the butt, It reminds me of all the crying and hollering about wearing a mask when a million unprotected, unvaccinated migrants have crossed the border and are being spread around the country, It will be interesting to see how long my rational and correct post stays up, Guesses anyone, I give it 5 minutes,

It's now 5:52