Why the California high-speed rail project is taking longer than planned

This is an updated version of a story first published on April 5, 2026. The original video can be viewed\u00a0here.\u00a0It\u0027s hard to exaggerate the role of the train in the American story\u00a0or\u00a0the romance of train travel, those iron horses galloping down rods of steel. Why, then, has high-speed rail \u2014 so common in other countries \u2014 not tracked in the U.S.? As we first reported in April, an ambitious state-run project connecting L.A. and San Francisco has lurched, derailed, cost billions and may never happen. One private\u00a0company is betting that it can succeed where the public sector has not, but that, too, has had its bumps. As U.S. high-speed rail remains a mirage, a ghost train, it\u0027s become a stand-in for a broader question: can America get its act together and still build big things?The very model of modern engineering, it hums across the fruited plains at a top speed of 200 miles-an-hour. It revolutionized travel, it\u0027s a source of national pride\u2026 in Morocco.Here in the U.S., high-speed rail looks like this: hardly passenger-ready.America\u0027s hopes for its first high-speed rail were kindled in 2008, when California voters approved a ballot measure for a train connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours. The estimated price tag: $33 billion. Completion date: 2020. It would cut pollution; revitalize local economies, clear gridlock.\u00a0Status update: today the state\u0027s high-speed rail authority is preparing\u00a0to lay its first tracks at roughly the same cost. Only, slight course correction here, instead of L.A. to San Francisco, it will run one-third of that distance, connecting\u2026 wait for it\u2026the metropolis of Bakersfield and Merced, population 99,000. Oh, and when will it open? 2033. Maybe.Rep. Vince Fong: I think that the California High-Speed Rail nightmare is the probably quintessential example of government waste and mismanagement.Jon Wertheim: You say this needs to stop.Rep. Vince Fong: Needs to stop.Congressman Vince Fong, a Republican from Bakersfield, sits on the House Transportation Committee. He says that when California voters first approved high-speed rail, the promise and price tag were more marketing campaign than realistic projection.\u00a0Rep. Vince Fong: We\u0027re now in 2026. There are no trains. There\u0027s no track laid. It was a complete bait and switch.Jon Wertheim: If I vote for a mansion in Malibu by next year, and someone says, "Actually, you know what? In five years, we\u0027re gonna have a doghouse in Modesto," How do things go so off the rails?Rep. Vince Fong: The business plan that was put out in 2008 was very theoretical. You know, "This is what we think is gonna happen." And it became very clear that they didn\u0027t have the specifics worked-- worked out.On that point, management doesn\u0027t disagree. Toks Omishakin is California\u0027s secretary of transportation, and Anthony Williams, a rail authority board member. Both are relatively new to the job, left to answer for their predecessors.Toks Omishakin: There were mistakes made. Some of the criticism on this pr-- on this project I think are very fair.Jon Wertheim: What happened?Toks Omishakin: I don\u0027t think the voters fully understood and neither did we in the public sector what it was gonna take to actually get this project delivered.To get the necessary political buy-in from the whole state, the plan called for the train to run inland, threading the farmland of the Central Valley. Yet, the rail authority hadn\u0027t answered basic questions, like precisely where it could lay down its tracks, what\u0027s known as right of way.Toks Omishakin: 3,000 parcels had to be negotiated just for the segments that we\u0027re working on today. In the Central Valley.\u00a0Jon Wertheim: It seems to me one-- one farmer doesn\u0027t want high-speed rail going through his field, and you\u0027ve got a guy that can gum up the works for-- for a long time.Toks Omishakin: Yeah, that\u0027s what happens-- sometimes in-- in these processes.More snarl: California\u0027s exacting environmental regulations, which triggered all manner of reviews, lawsuits, and delays. As anyone who\u0027s renovated a home knows, delay adds to price. So do the high U.S. labor and construction costs \u2014 at least compared to many other countries\u0027. And while the federal government contributed modestly under the Obama and Biden administrations, the burden fell largely on the state.\u00a0Jon Wertheim: When construction started, was the financing there to complete this-- this rail?Anthony Williams: It wasn\u0027t. Let\u0027s be real. We had a lot to learn. We had a lot of growth to do. And, you know, there\u0027s-- it\u0027s arguable whether, you know, we should have been clearer about that.By 2019 \u2014 costs ballooning and the timeline years off schedule \u2014 bipartisan political pressure mounted. Newly elected, Gov. Gavin Newsom said this in his first state of the state:Gov. Newsom: Right now, there simply isn\u0027t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to LA.\u00a0Under Newsom, who didn\u0027t respond to repeated interview requests \u2014 California decided to focus on that initial central Valley segment; a route few clamored for and fewer are likely to ride, though the ultimate goal remains connecting northern and southern California.\u00a0Lou Thompson: When you have a project like this, and when the-- when the budget no longer permits you to finish it the way you wanted to, you start cutting off your arms and legs.Lou Thompson helped found Amtrak in the 1970s, and until 2024, sat on California\u0027s High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group.\u00a0Jon Wertheim: We\u0027ve heard people say, "Time to cut bait." We\u0027ve heard people saying, "What happened in the past was the past. Failure\u0027s not an option."Lou Thompson: Failure is always an option.Jon Wertheim: Is that what\u0027s gonna happen here?Lou Thompson: ...

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