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5/31/2024
U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) are asking the U.S. Department of Transportation to turn over documents about the Biden administration’s decision to award billions in federal funding to California’s high-speed rail project.
In a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Graves and Cruz said the project has ballooned from its proposed $33 billion budget to its current cost of $128 billion.
“The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) still has not completed a single segment of the system, the total estimated cost has ballooned to $128 billion and counting, and there is no expected completion date,” their letter stated. “CHSRA has recently focused its efforts on completing a 171-mile segment between Merced and Bakersfield. This segment alone will cost more than $35 billion to serve about 2 million riders annually.”
The $3.3 billion awarded to the project by the USDOT over the past year have not closed even half of the unfunded gap for the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment, the lawmakers wrote.
“The prognosis for the full system is bleak, with an unfunded gap as high as $99 billion,” they said.
Earlier this month, the CHSRA released its spring 2024 progress report, which can be viewed here. The Graves and Cruz letter to Buttigieg can be viewed here.