This is so angry, frustrating, and completely the reasonable, correct decision to make. I want more than anything to have high speed rail between the San Francisco and LA, but wow those in charge did a great job of ruining the current plan for it.

Hopefully sometime in the future we can try again and make it work, though it'll probably be even harder to acquire funds from voters who are rightfully angry that much of their tax money was essentially wasted with this effort.

That being said, I'm glad we were able to get funds for electrification and other improvements along the bay area corridor!

My only concern is that I have no idea what the actual people traffic between Merced and Bakersfield is. I don't recall the last time I stopped in either place for more than gas and restroom breaks.

That said, I really don't know enough to have an opinion of any value.

If only Schwarzenegger and Brown had started it in Bay Area or LA transit regions instead of Central CA, we would have something usable right now from the $5 billion already spent (at a rate of $3 million a day). Web Link Can you imagine what $5 billion would have done to Bay Area transit over the last decade?

Government at every level wastes money - sometimes through sweetheart deals to contractors. Watch the VTA do it next with that sales tax increase.

Who coulda seen this coming?

I second the idea that this should have started with a San Jose-San Francisco or LA-San Diego segment instead of a line that will take dozens of people per day from nowhere to nowhere. But lots of construction jobs.

Ah, I see. Now is not the time. Now, when the economy is hot and the state has large budget surpluses. Yeah, let’s wait for an economic downturn and then invest. Derpy derp derp!

Newsom is a typical sleazy politician. He made the correct decision , only because he has other priorities for wasting taxpayer money.

Like Newsome Hater, I also agree that the Gov made the correct decision on this issue. Wow, common ground has been located!

The US has lost the ability to build infrastructure due to corruption at all levels of government, it's really that simple. Occasionally we do get some infrastructure, the Bay Bridge, for example, which came in at $6.4 billion, after being budgeted for $1 billion, but generally, the money is squandered.

Japan has the most efficient rail in the world; fast, affordable, and on time. How do they do it? By keeping government out of it. Web Link

Please, don't ever ask government to do anything, it's the touch of death.

When I ran for city Council, one of my major issues was High Speed Rail. I was speaking out against it as a major waste of taxpayer funds and saying that the only purpose of such a project would be to create more government jobs at taxpayer expense. For that, I was excoriated both by most of the other candidates as well as many local 'news" publications who said that my claims and my position were 'extreme" and "exaggerated".

From the beginning, I said that there was no way that this project could possibly come close to paying for itself, nor operate in a way that would make it an affordable means of transportation for the average person. It will be so expensive that it won't even be competitive with air travel!

Now the Governor wants to continue to waste money by having HSR from Merced to Bakersfield! What on earth for? Couldn't that money be better used providing food,shelter and treatments for addictions for the people in the San Francisco; the city he failed as Mayor?


While I am pleased that I was once again proven to be correct in my assessments, I am saddened that it has taken so long and that Billions in resources have been wasted on something that any idiot could see would never work and would be far more expensive that the politicians claimed.


Jim Neal
Modesto, Ca
(Formerly Old Mountain View)

Man.. I =ALMOST= found something I agreed with Newsome on.. then we blew it.

The =ONLY= decision is to KILL the whole thing. It was a bad idea when it passed and it just kept getting worse over time.

Newsome doesn't really think having a super expensive train line between Bakersfield and Merced is the right move.

He just doesn't want to shut it down and put people out of work. People being paid with our money to run a train from nowhere to nowhere.

160 miles of the most expensive train track in the world, plus the cost of running those empty trains for years after. That's what we're stuck with.

I should stop fighting it and go get a job with the train district. Gravy train that is!

Your link regarding the rail system in Japan is spot on. You are not reading it carefully though. The writer confesses that Japan’s rail system is only efficient and profitable in the relatively small routes in Tokyo, where massive density pushes residents to use the train. Go outside these areas and it’s the same as here. Much of the rail is actually subsidized and there are government price controls.


So, if you want to hold up Japan as an example, then you should be pleased as to the progress California has made. Pretty much the same, except the project isn’t done here...yet.

By the way, HSR in Japan went through similar pains that we did. Initial budget estimates sounded reasonable , but it wasn’t until much later when it was discovered that the actual costs were to be much higher.

Glad everyone's happy. Killing this train is the same lack of vision and planning that causes us to have BART in only three counties instead of connecting the entire Bay Area. Hence, we have hopeless traffic, polluted skies and water, and an insane housing crisis.

High speed train from the central valley would have enabled people to live outside the Bay Area and have a cost effective way to get to and from their jobs without adding to our traffic and pollution woes. The point isn't to turn a profit; the point is to provide better quality of life for everyone.

I have a typically "humble" suggestion to save even more money. Use inexpensive & standard electric commuter train rolling stock.

Since the proposed Merced to Bakersfield line will be "local", have fairly low ridership, not have to compete with aircraft (which was an insane idea), and have standard gauge rails, it no longer needs to run at speeds over 60 to 80 mph. It can be a local commuter train just like Caltrain. Use electric locomotives and cars identical to those that Caltrain plans to use from Gillroy to San Francisco. This use of standard equipment will avoid the HUGE mistake that BART deliberately made when it chose exotic electric cars with non-standard gauge and custom-designed support equipment. It also will allow the use of normal grade crossings in the Valley due to reasonable train speeds and low traffic volumes "in the middle of nowhere".

There's another benefit. Hopefully, this will kill forever the impossible and highly dangerous dream of running 200 mph trains through the Bay Area and also through Greater Los Angeles.

The money saved by killing this "nightmare forced upon CA by economically- and ideologically-challenged fools" can be far better spent. CA has a critical problem with its fresh water supply. Use the "HSR for deluded dreamers" money for a far better use for the "greater good for all". Fund water reservoir and water storage projects in areas of highest rainfall. The Sierra Club will viciously fight this because they hate everything to do with reality, but are they still relevant anymore??? John Muir is long dead, and his dream is long dead too. Idealism must give way to reality. Save open space, but save rainfall too!!!

This was a foolish money-waster from the word go. The places they wanted to connect first were low-volume, the understanding from the beginning is that it couldn't function without subsidies and the price doubled before the first shovel hit the ground. Brown insisted on a trifecta of stupidity and this is the result. 10 years in and we have nothing to show for the huge pile of money spent other than ruined farmland and wasted time.

Rather than investing in improving the water system in the state (on a item used by every citizen), they chose to dump billions into a system that could serve few and in no way pay its own way. Tax money should benefit the maximum number of people, not the ego of a bunch of misguided politicians with few brains and less common sense.

Japan is a TINY place and the only reason HSR works there is population distribution and small corridors. But politicians love to liken apples to oranges when it suits them. They tried to engineer us into their vision and this is the result.

At least Newsome did the right thing - even if he did it for the wrong reasons and didn't drive the stake all the way through the heart of this blood-sucking project. But don't worry. I'm sure he will follow this up with his own silly notion for the taxpayers to finance.

It's interesting to see people regurgitating talking points they haven't checked and don't understand. California is 160000 sq mi. Japan, that tiny nation you were discussing, is 146000 sq mi.

Not sure we should be patting Newsom on the back just yet. Killing the project might be just a clever way to take the dogs off the scent leading to where all the squandered billions went.

Whatever money is left in the CalHSR budget should be used to tear this aborted boondoggle down and return displaced people to their homes and property, instead of a pathetic attempt to save face by continuing the folly from Bakersfield to Merced.

Didn't take the rail fanboys long to recover from this body blow and get back to pushing our local rail boondoggle.

Breaking news from the Honolulu Star Advertiser:

"Feds subpoena Honolulu rail authority for construction documents"

"The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation has been served with a sweeping federal subpoena seeking construction documents in connection with the $9.2 billion rail project, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser has learned"

Link: Web Link

This kind of puts Newsom's recent move into a whole new light. Are Federal subpoenas in to works for CalHSR?