In the dystopian novel ‘1984’, George Orwell wrote: ‘The Party said you should reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their last, most essential order.” The true meaning of that phrase has never been more apparent than when looking at the truly bizarre photo of California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom announcing the success of history’s greatest prank: his high-speed train to nowhere. Without building a single foot of track after burning through $12 billion, Newsom displayed a diesel freight train on conventional track to give the impression of a working railroad.
I’ve been writing about this boondoggle for years. Newsom promised years ago that the project would be transformative. It was, but not as he promised.
Voters approved a $9.95 billion bond issue in 2008 after absurdly low estimates of the expected costs. Influential figures and companies could make a fortune, and the key was to secure a ‘buy-in’ worth billions so that it would become increasingly difficult to abandon the project as costs spiral through overruns and delays.
Now the official estimate of future passenger numbers has fallen by 25%, and billions more are needed to complete a project that has been postponed for decades. Remember that this entire project was intended to create a railway line of only 270 kilometers. It is expected to exceed $128 billion and could ultimately cost $1 billion per mile. There are still unfinished environmental assessments and challenging railway lines through the mountains.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom is touting his perceived success with the high-speed rail line, even though it hasn’t built a single track yet. (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
Almost twenty years later there is still no train and not a meter of track.
Inspector General Benjamin Belnap issued a scathing report on the first phase of the still-unfinished project. That’s just the Merced to Bakersfield stretch that should have been completed in 2033. Belnap wrote:
“With a smaller remaining planning envelope and the potential for significant uncertainty and risk during the next phases of the project, it is unlikely to remain within the 2033 planning envelope. In fact, uncertainty over some parts of the project has increased as the authority has recently made decisions that deviate from the procurement and financing strategies that formed part of its plans to stay on schedule.”
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Instead of delivering on the promise of a high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco, the Merced-Bakersfield line would now cost $35.3 billion, exceeding the 2008 projection for a complete system.
Merced and Bakersfield have a combined population of just 500,000 for the most expensive rail project in state history.
Newsom, however, still wants to be president, even as citizens are fleeing his state in record numbers. The “train to nowhere” is a problem. Even the New York Times is writing editorials about whether Newsom will be the Democratic Party’s next mistake.
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Newsom’s response is to provide gushing columns like Maya Singer’s embarrassing piece in Vogue:
‘Let’s get this out of the way: he’s embarrassingly handsome, his hair spiced with silver, at ease with his own eminence as he delivers his final State of the State address…
California’s high-speed rail “boondoggle” will one day cross this bridge over CA-99 in Fresno. (Reuters)
Newsom’s lanky body lay folded on a couch that was a little too low for him. This caused him to lean back, away from me. Or it could be that his body language has nothing to do with ergonomics and is a function of Newsom’s quality of companionship and aloofness.”
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It’s the kind of heartbreaking reporting on teeny boppers that Newsom is counting on in the media. It’s not the billions burned on a non-existent railroad, but his glorious hair and “eminence.”
However, others outside of Vogue readers may be interested in his actual track record. Hence the need to release this absurd photo that would make a propagandist blush:
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“All the hard work is behind us. Now we’re going to see the fruits of it. We’re going to see exactly what you see here. Real tracks, real progress.”
Merced and Bakersfield have a combined population of just 500,000 for the most expensive rail project in state history.
It’s like paying for a meal at a restaurant and the chef charges you ten times what’s on the menu while he doesn’t produce the meal for hours, and then shows you a photo of another dish as a sign of his progress.
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The difference is that it took Newsom almost two decades to deliver the original dish and cut it down to a fraction of its original size, while the price rose exponentially.
Californians are now trapped on a train to nowhere. The state must continue to burn billions because there is too much investment economically and politically. They have to be on the train with Gavin Newsom until the end.
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