It is not every day that a state manages to burn billions and still ask for more. But the high -speed project of California has always been exceptional in this way.
Last month, the federal government finally said enough, so that $ 4 billion in financing was deleted after years of missed deadlines, balloon fern budgets and political theatrics. You would think that would stop the train. Instead, the State was celebrated by tweeting on building courses and the posting of photos of the reinforcement.
Ten years ago I did mathematics and showed that for the price of the high-speed project of California, we could fly every Californian round trip to Tokyo, she bought a bullet train ticket to Kyoto and put them in the Ritz-Carlton for two nights. And we would still have money left for sushi.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom calls for a new way for California to sign his voice districts again during a press conference in Sacramento, California, Friday, July 25, 2025 (AP Photo by Rich Pedroncelli)
A decade later, the Bullet train has still not arrived. But the fantasy rolls on, powered by taxpayer dollars and bureaucratic slowness.
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With the federal spigot finally eliminated, the high-speed railway authority in California did not respond with humility, but with a victory round: proud tweeting that it had created “15,500 jobs” on what it still called “America’s only high-speed rail project”.
The image? A construction worker who runs the reinforcement of an American flag – an attempt to pack a failed infrastructure project in patriotism. But no flag can relate to what this really is: a monument funded by the taxpayer for maladministration.
Rebar during the construction of a high-speed project in Kings County, California, on March 24, 2025. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The promise that the voters approved in 2008 was clear: an electric train of 220 km / h that connects San Francisco and Los Angeles for $ 33 billion. A transforming project that would match the Shinkansen in Japan or the TGV in France. But since then the costs have risen to $ 128 billion – and the finish line will continue to withdraw into the future.
The real project today? A partial rail segment between Merced and Bakersfield, two cities that were never central to the original purpose of the project. It is like building a shuttle from the airport that runs between a corn field and a rest stop. Nobody asked for it. Nobody will ride it.
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The High-Speed Railway Authority now leans hard on “job creation” as justification. Of course it does that. When a project is no longer useful as transport, “jobs” becomes the political life of life. But as Milton Friedman said famous, if you just want to create jobs, you can work employees instead of kicking.
Ten years later, mathematics still comes out. You could:
Fly every Californian – around 39 million people – round to Tokyo in Coach: $ 1,200 per person
Add a Round trip Shinkansen Bullet Training Ticket to Kyoto: $ 200
Two nights in the Ritz-Carlton Kyoto: $ 1,400
Total: $ 2,800 per person × 39 million = $ 109 billion
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That is still $ 19 billion cheaper than the train from California to nowhere. Or in other words: for what we spent on a train, nobody can drive, we could have given every person in the state a literal journey of your life.
And yet the project continues – because no one in Sacramento wants to be the one who stops it. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who ‘paused’ the project in 2019, is the least that it has been ‘pausing’ publicly and then recently restarted it three years later.
Contractors during the construction of a high-speed project in Madera County, California, on March 24, 2025. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty images)
He now seems to audition for the national office. But if he runs, this project will participate with him. It should be. It deserves its name: the Newsom line. A monument to ambition without competence.
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If this actually passed transportThe state would just keep Southwest Airlines doing what it does better, faster and cheaper than the state could ever. Instead, we finance a job program disguised as a train.
Gov. Newsom, pull the brakes. If you want to become a national leader, show some leadership. End this. Or accept that your name will forever be ordered to the most expensive ghost train in American history.
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