60 Minutes Tackles California’s $125 Billion High-Speed Train to Nowhere: ‘A Complete Bait and Switch’

60 Minutes on Sunday profiled the “Ghost train” in California — the high-speed rail project that was approved by voters in 2008 and supposed to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco. Instead, the project has turned into an estimated $125 billion stain on the state, with Californians still waiting for the first tracks to be laid down, years after the train was expected to starting running.

Correspondent Jon Wertheim wanted to get an answer on why the train is so far behind schedule — and over budget.

He pointed to a few reasons, including “California’s exacting environmental regulations, which triggered all manner of reviews, lawsuits, and delays.”

“As anyone whose renovated a home knows, delay adds to price,” Wertheim quipped.

He said the high cost of U.S. labor and construction relative to other countries hasn’t helped, either.

Another problem: terrible planning. Rep. Vince Fong (R-CA) told CBS the 2008 plan that was approved by voters was “very theoretical,” but that it has become “very clear they didn’t have the specifics worked out.”

“We’re now in 2026. There are no trains, there’s no track laid,” Fong added. “It’s a complete bait and switch.”

The project was approved with $9.95 billion initially earmarked for it, with the final cost expected to be around $33 billion. But nearly two-decades of delays have sent that price tag soaring.

California High Speed Rail Authority board member Anthony Williams — a former legislative affairs secretary for California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) — told Wertheim the project is now expected to cost around $125 billion.

“It wasn’t. Let’s be real,” Williams said when asked if the financing was there to complete the project when it first launched.

California is now scrambling to fund it, and the LA-to-SF train dream has been scrapped for a more modest goal — a train that connects the state’s Central Valley between Bakersfield and Merced. The state is aiming to finally put track down this year, about six years after the project was initially supposed to finish.

“I don’t think the voters fully understood — and neither did we in the public sector — what it was going to take to actually get this project delivered,” California Secretary of Transportation Toks Omishakin said.

California’s high-speed rail project was championed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2008 and his successor Jerry Brown was an enthusiastic supporter, directing cap-and-trade revenue and signing legislation that released bond funds for it.

Newsom was initially supportive of the plan but moved away from it for a bit in the mid-2010s, before returning to backing it in more recent years; the governor did not respond to multiple requests to be interviewed by 60 Minutes. 

Wertheim noted the train’s projected $126 billion price tag is “more funding than Amtrak has received in its history, and still leaves a shortfall of roughly $90 billion.”

“That’s a big gap to fill,” Wertheim told Williams.

You can see his answer in the clip immediately above, and you can watch a longer slice of the feature in the clip at the top of page via CBS.

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