President , Donald Trump , took dead aim at California’s high-speed bridge project Tuesday, promising to guide an exploration into the besieged initiative under development in , Fresno , and the central , San Joaquin Valley.
” The teach that’s being built between , Los Angeles , and , San Francisco , is the worst managed venture I think I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some of the worst”, Trump told reporters Tuesday. He claimed that the task was “overbudget-wise” in terms of “billions and billion, hundreds of billions of dollars.”
” We’re going to launch a major investigation of that, because I’ve never seen anything like it”, he added. ” One’s ever seen anything like it. The worst shortfalls there have ever been in our nation’s story.
Even before Tuesday, there was an , air of confusion over the gun train project.  , In 2019, Trump , canceled a previously awarded federal grant of almost$ 1 billion  , and threatened to claw back several billion dollars in other federal funds awarded to the project during the Obama administration.
Trump and one of his key advisers, systems billionaire , Elon Musk, have both been very critical of the , California High-Speed Rail Authority , and its anticipated bullet-train venture to connect , Los Angeles , and , San Francisco , by approach of , Fresno , and the , San Joaquin Valley.
But on Tuesday, the leader said that Musk— who he named to guide the advisory , Department of Government Performance, or Expand — didn’t get involved in the investigation:” No, I’m doing that myself”.
Trump made the remarks as part of a diatribe against government corruption, saying that he believed that government officials should be accepting kickbacks from businesses funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development ( USAID ) and the  . The organization supports efforts to fight poverty and education abroad.
California’s optimistic bridge job has been beset by an ever-escalating price tag and a plan that has slipped well beyond first objectives. In 2008, when voters approved Proposition 1A, a$ 9.9 billion high-speed road connection measure, the ball was to create a completely electric-powered method of passenger carriages traveling at speeds up to 220 miles from , San Francisco , to , Los Angeles, by way of the , San Joaquin Valley.
Except for disputing the government’s comments on the site’s price, a spokesperson for the , California High-Speed Rail Authority , did not directly target Trump’s notes.
” To time, 171 yards of the high-speed bridge project are under design and effective building, more than 14, 600 high-quality work have been created, and more than 880 little companies are engaged on the project”, the spokesperson said in a prepared speech. ” Of approximately$ 13 billion spent on the project,$ 10.5 billion have been funded exclusively by the state of , California , — not’ hundreds of billions ‘ — and those expenditures have created over$ 22 billion in economic impact, largely in California ‘s , Central Valley , communities”.
” Every dollar of the project is accounted for and has been thoroughly reviewed by the independent , Office of the Inspector General , ( OIG)”, the statement said.
Despite the president’s false assertions that the , California High-Speed Rail Authority , has “hundreds of billions of dollars of cost overruns” on its project, the agency has spent nowhere near that amount.
Since 2006, the state has spent just over$ 13 billion, most of it for development and construction not only in the , San Joaquin Valley, but on “bookend” portions of the route in the , San Francisco Bay Area , and the , Los Angeles Basin.
To date, the , Federal Railroad Administration , under the Obama and Biden presidential administrations has provided less than$ 7 billion in grants to , California , for the project.
But , President Trump , was more accurate when he pointed out the abbreviated scale of construction and planning from what was ultimately proposed to for trains to run between , Los Angeles , and , San Francisco , with future extensions to , Sacramento , and , San Diego.
” Now it’s not even going to , San Francisco , and it’s not going to , Los Angeles. They made it much shorter”, the president said of what is now set to be an , initial passenger-carrying line within the , San Joaquin Valley , between , Merced , and , Bakersfield. ” So now it’s at little places way away from , San Francisco , and way away from Los Angeles”.
The latest plan by the , California High-Speed Rail Authority , is to wait to build extensions to , San Jose , and to , Los Angeles , and , Anaheim , until the agency has firmly identified , where the rest of the estimated$ 88.5 billion to$ 129.9 billion would come from. The chasm between the low and high estimates reflects uncertainty over what it could ultimately cost to build beyond , Bakersfield , and , Merced, including tunnels through the , Diablo Range , and , Pacheco Pass , to reach the Bay Area and through the , Tehachapi , and , San Gabriel , mountains to get into the , Los Angeles Basin.
The rail program has encountered a number of issues that have increased both its cost and estimated completion date far beyond what state leaders and residents had envisioned, but in the 17 years since Proposition 1A was approved by voters.
• An excessive number of lawsuits are brought over issues ranging from the use of state funds to the accuracy of environmental reports.
•Deadlines relating to the Obama administration’s use of billions of dollars in federal grants, which led to a rush to start work before much of the necessary planning and engineering work had been completed.
•A painstakingly slow pace of buying right-of-way needed for construction.
• Change orders for contractors who have added hundreds of millions of dollars to the project’s cost.
All of those issues and more set set in motion a domino-like series of circumstances that continue to plague the project, which is now not expected to begin carrying passengers between , Merced , and , Bakersfield , until sometime between 2030 and 2033. No time frame has been offered for building or operating future extensions to , San Jose , or , Los Angeles.
Still, the rail authority said it is poised for the future.
” The majority of the approximately 500-mile system from , San Francisco , to , Los Angeles , is fully environmentally cleared and stand shovel-ready for future phases of investment”, the agency’s statement said.
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