California Bullet Train back under the microscope

High-speed rail plan draws analysts’ concern over costs, projections

Undergirding the warnings, an inquiry by California Watch and The Orange County Register has found, is a tangle of related concerns:

The appointed officials who make up California’s High-Speed Rail Authority  say they will rely on $19 billion in federal aid to pay for the 800-mile system. But the legislative analyst says federal funding may amount to less than $4 billion – a $15 billion shortfall.
The rail authority’s $45 billion construction estimate may be $22 billion too low, the legislative analyst says. Cost overruns of the sort that have afflicted other big U.S. projects could even drive the actual price above $200 billion, according to a critical study by a Stanford University professor.
The bullet train’s prospects for turning big profits are founded on ridership forecasts that are deeply flawed, two studies claim. Rather than making billions in profits, high-speed rail might actually “incur significant revenue shortfalls,” a UC Berkeley study found.

California debt service is now 7% of budget. The likelihood that the bond market will buy additional trains bonds next year is small.