>At a budget hearing in the state assembly Wednesday, Kerstein told lawmakers that the project is now $7 billion short of what it needs by next June. She added that there is currently no plan to address the shortfall and that there is a "risk" that the deficit could grow.
>With no plan in sight, Kerstein says the project could halt in as little as 15 months.
>Initially pitched to voters in 2008 as a $40 billion high-speed rail line connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco, the California bullet train project has seen its price tag balloon to at least $100 billion, with most of the funding still unrealized.
>Although the state has spent roughly $14 billion on the project, it needs more than twice that amount to complete the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment, which officials hope to finish between 2030 and 2033.
>"Promised to be completed by 2020 with a price tag of $34 billion, HSRA's projected budget ballooned to over $128 billion," the letter reads.
>"Voters were told that more than 20 percent of the project would be privately funded. Instead, taxpayers face the reality of single-handedly funding massively inflated costs for a project that many will never use or see completed.
>"The HSRA has spent $13.7 billion in total, including $1.6 billion on professional marketing materials and consultants. The only partially completed segment so far connects a field and an orchard and has cost $1.4 billion for 22 miles of raised dirt; along with 11 overpass structures. Zero feet of track have been laid to date.

Back | Go to board

Board:

/sci/

Thread:

Why has America never built a high speed rail that travels between Los Angeles and New York?