Opinion: Bullet train’s new strategy

It’s been a year since I revisited my old standby topic for this column: California’s High Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA). That’s because nothing much has happened. Oh sure, if you drive up and down the valley, you can probably see people working on various projects every day. They have jobs to do, and they are well-paying jobs. According to the CAHSRA website, the Authority sent out requests for proposals to contractors for laying tracks. The Board approved $3.5 billion for the job, but one of the great mysteries of the twenty-first century is where those billions are coming from.

Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, Rachel Swan notes that “… officials have blown deadlines, fought lawsuits, debated new funding strategies and drastically scaled back the project to focus on a segment in the Central Valley.” Last July, the Central Valley project was struggling to find a way to connect “somewhere north of Madera” to a point “near Shafter,” 19 miles northwest of Bakersfield. However, a recent posting on the CAHSRA website states, “Work continues daily on the high-speed rail project, with 171 miles currently under design and construction from Merced to Bakersfield.”

Merced and Bakersfield?

I’ve taken SR 99 to Merced this year and saw no evidence of construction for a high-speed line anywhere north of Madera. Perhaps that’s why the word “design” is included in the CAHSRA statement on its website. When I checked the Authority’s finances last year, there simply was no money to extend the line either to Merced or to Bakersfield. In fact, in my July 12, 2025, column, I quoted Kenneth Schrupp of The Center Square, who said that the Legislative Analyst’s Office released a statement that indicated the state “has no capacity for new commitments.”

At that time, there was no design plan for the stretch from Madera to Merced. The Shafter City Council had no communication from the CAHSRA regarding a proposed change in its route to Bakersfield. Because both proposed extensions would require environmental approval, review of engineering plans, and so forth, it’s highly unlikely that any construction has taken place on either proposal. In fact, the CAHSRA’s website informs, “Nearly 80 miles of guideway are complete, along with nearly 60 fully completed major structures, and more than 30 more structures underway across Madera, Fresno, Kings, and Tulare counties.”

Notice that there is no mention of Merced County or Kern County (home of Bakersfield). However, its newest map of the eventual train route shows stations in Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings/Tulare, and Bakersfield.

Initially, no station was shown for Madera. Then, a few years ago, there was talk of a transit station around Avenue 12. But discussion of that ended quickly, perhaps because no one lives near where train tracks were scheduled to be set in the Avenue 12 area. However, I could find no information indicating that Madera would have a passenger station like Fresno or Hanford.

And for Hanford — by the way — the Kings/Tulare depot will be about 5 miles east of the Hanford city limit -– another uninhabited area. Who thinks up these idiotic plans?

Connecting megalopolises

When California voters were asked to approve the high-speed rail system, the hype was “S.F. to L.A. in two hours and forty minutes.” Whatever happened to that plan? Our state has two huge megalopolises, San Francisco (which includes the West Bay Area as well as Oakland and East Bay cities, with a population of about 4.7 million people) and the Los Angeles Basin (which includes a myriad of cities surrounding Los Angeles proper, with a population of almost 13.3 million people). So, connecting these two huge conglomerates, comprising nearly half of the state’s total population, was supposed to provide an alternative to driving and air travel, both of which require a lot of gasoline and contribute to air pollution. It would also reduce traffic congestion and make airports less crowded. Not a bad idea. So, what went wrong?

First of all, planners for the rail may have taken the S.F. to L.A. idea literally, thinking about cities instead of the metropolitan areas. Had they done the latter, perhaps the bullet train would have run between Oakland and Burbank. In which case, the rail could have run alongside Interstate 5. The state already had the right of ways, the area had passed the environmental studies, and the route was a relatively straight line. The engineers would not have had to struggle with how to negotiate Pacheco Pass through the mountains or figure out a way to run a 200 mph train through the crowded West Bay Area of million-dollar houses and billion-dollar industries.

Now, I think the idea of riding a train for roughly 2.5 hours from S.F. to L.A. is a pipe dream. Given current plans, the train will have to pass through San Jose (which will probably have a station) and Gilroy (another station) before climbing the mountain and passing through tunnels that have yet to be drilled. Then, there will be stops in Madera, Fresno, Kings/Tulare (Hanford), and Bakersfield.

From there, the train will swing east to Palmdale (where snakes go to die) and then continue on, perhaps to Rancho Cucamonga, or someplace along the SR 210 corridor. From there, commuters will have to change trains to ride into the City of the Angels.

Is that possible in 2.5 hours? Absolutely not.

Public/private investment

This year, Ian Choudri, CEO of the CAHSRA, and newly appointed Board Chairperson Steve Kawa are attempting to gather funds to pay for the estimated $126 billion (or likely much more) to complete the system. According to the CAHSRA website at the end of 2025, the “California High-Speed Rail Authority initiated a process to bring private investors and developers to the Authority by the summer 2026.” I thought, “Good luck with that.” And, by the way, here we are about to enter the summer of 2026.

Investors are interested in putting their money into projects that promise a reasonable return on their investment. At the present time, based on the Office of the Legislative Analyst’s projections on ridership and projected cost to passengers, the “bullet train” may never break even on an annual basis, let alone begin repaying the planning and construction expense.

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Jim Glynn is Professor Emeritus of Sociology. He may be contacted at j_glynn@att.net.