Cash-Strapped Calif. Building ‘Bullet Train to Nowhere’

A new poll shows that California voters no longer support building a $68 billion high-speed rail line connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco.

But the Democratic-controlled state legislature is expected to approve the initial $6 billion, 130-mile section of the line — which could lead to the construction of a costly “orphan track” in rural California not connected to either city.

The high-speed line was approved by 53 percent of voters in a 2008 ballot, allowing the state to raise $10 billion from bonds and secure $3.5 billion in stimulus money from the Obama administration.

Construction of the first section of the line is scheduled to begin in California’s Central Valley near Merced, a town of 80,000, and proceed south for about 300 miles to the outskirts of Los Angeles. The link from Merced to San Francisco would not be completed until 2028.

But the project remains about $54 billion short of what is required for completion, “raising fears that the state will be unable to find the funds to finish later sections, and could be left with a futuristic rail line linking minor cities and farming communities” — an “orphan track linked to neither major city,” The Telegraph reported in an article headlined “Buyers’ remorse for California’s ‘bullet train to nowhere.’”

The new poll found that 59 percent of voters would oppose the bullet train project and halt borrowing if given another chance to vote. And only 33 percent said they would prefer the train’s 2 1/2-hour trip — costing about $125 each way — over a one-hour plane ride or seven-hour drive.

But Gov. Jerry Brown remains committed to the project, even though he is proposing tax increases and austere public spending cuts, including a pay cut for state workers, to deal with a $16 billion budget deficit.

Jim Nielsen, Republican vice chairman of the state Assembly Budget Committee, told The Telegraph that the rail project is “an idea that gets worse the more information we get about it.”