CHSR Board Shifts Blame as Total Projected Costs Hit $126.2 Billion

California high-speed rail cost was discussed Wednesday morning. The California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Board of Directors reviewed the project’s $126.2 billion projected price tag. Many have described the rail effort as a boondoggle. This is reported by the railway transport news portal Railway Supply.

Board members also pushed back on responsibility for the project’s cost to date. They said that total is $15.7 billion. California voters passed a bond measure in November 2008. The measure authorized a $9.95 billion bond to finance the high-speed rail project. That detail appears in the official voter information guide distributed to residents that year.

The Center Square reported that no track had been laid as of June 2025. Board members were not available Wednesday to answer The Center Square’s questions. Those questions included whether any track would be laid this year. Staff from the High-Speed Rail Authority also declined to answer questions.

California high-speed rail cost and funding questions

“There’s so many questions out there from Californians, from Americans, from everybody, about why is this project so hard, why has it fallen behind, how has it gotten so expensive,” board member Emily Cohen said during the meeting. “High-speed Rail [Authority] is not in charge of every component of building this project.”

Cohen said the project depends on a funding package. It would provide $1 billion each year through 2045, pending approval by the Legislature. No lawmakers attended Wednesday’s meeting, except for Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced. Caballero serves as an ex-officio board member. She attended part of the meeting but did not comment.

“We need our elected officials and we need our constituents to make noise about how important this is for getting this project done,” Cohen said. “High-speed Rail [Authority] does not have control over this. Our elected officials owe Californians this package in a responsible way to get this project done. That’s on them.”

Also, officials raised concerns about the timeline for finishing construction. They said additional delays would increase costs.

“This needs to be addressed, and this is a way for how we continue to reduce the taxpayers’ burden, and continue to raise funds through the program,” Ian Choudri, the authority’s CEO, told the board.

2026 business plan and project timeline

A draft 2026 business plan was released in February. It had been expected to come up during Wednesday’s High-Speed Rail Authority board meeting. The discussion was postponed until the next board meeting in May.

The draft plan was issued months before the authority’s final 2026 business plan. That final plan is due each year on May 1.

According to the business plan, the project is expected to be completed in 2039. Service is expected to begin in 2040. That would be 20 years later than the original timeline. California voters were presented with that timeline in 2008.

Merced-to-Bakersfield segment funding

The draft business plan also proposed allocating $1 billion per year through 2045. The money would come from the state’s cap-and-trade program, which state officials often call cap-and-invest. Part of it would go toward the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment. That section is under construction in the central part of the state.

The draft plan estimated the cost of that central segment at $34.76 billion. In the same document, high-speed rail officials said they had identified $39.3 billion. That amount was for that portion of the line. That would leave an additional $4.5 billion for the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment.

The plan also said the $1 billion annual allocation depends on market and regulatory risk. Still, those risks could result in less than $1 billion per year. The money would be generated from the state’s cap-and-trade program. The plan refers to those funds as greenhouse gas reduction funds.

Separately, the authority issued another report in March. It gave a lower completion-cost estimate for the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment. The figure was lower than the one in the February draft business plan. In the March report, the authority estimated the segment would cost $31.56 billion. That was $3.2 billion below the February projection.

Federal funding and state response

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy did not respond Wednesday to The Center Square’s interview request. Duffy has criticized California’s high-speed rail project. He played a central role in the withdrawal of $4 billion in federal funding. The funding had originally been intended for the high-speed rail project. It had been slated through the Federal Railroad Administration in 2025.

After those federal funds were canceled, the California Department of Justice sued the federal government. The lawsuit was later dismissed.

Meanwhile, in February, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state was continuing with high-speed rail. His comment followed completion of the southern railhead facility in Kern County.

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