California high-speed rail project facing more delays, higher costs

In this Feb. 26, 2015 file photo, a full-scale mock-up of a high-speed train is displayed at the Capitol in Sacramento. Completion of California’s high-speed rail project has been pushed back four more years less In this Feb. 26, 2015 file photo, a full-scale mock-up of a high-speed train is displayed at the Capitol in Sacramento. Completion of California’s high-speed rail project has been pushed back four more ... more Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close California high-speed rail project facing more delays, higher costs 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

SACRAMENTO — Completion of California’s high-speed-rail project has been pushed back four more years — into the 2030s — and the project’s costs are likely to shoot up to $77 billion, officials said Friday.

A revised business plan issued by the California High-Speed Rail Authority said building the full San Francisco-to-Los Angeles bullet-train line is expected to cost at least $63 billion, and $98 billion under a worst-case scenario. The middle-of-the-road estimate is $77 billion, according to the draft report, which will now undergo public comment and legislative scrutiny.

How the state will pay for the full project remains a critical question.

The bullet train’s most recent cost estimate was $64 billion, which was already double the original $32 billion price tag that was pitched to state voters when they authorized bond money for the project nearly a decade ago.

The rail authority said it hopes to finish the full line by 2033, a delay from the most recent estimate of 2029. It said it will focus on starting service by 2027 on a San Francisco-to-Gilroy segment and extending a line it hopes to open in the Central Valley in 2022.

At that point, the rail authority said, it will work on the financial and technical challenges of connecting those routes through the Pacheco Pass east of Gilroy and taking trains over the Tehachapi Mountains to Los Angeles.

Construction on the first piece of the line, a 119-mile stretch from Madera to Bakersfield, began in 2015, seven years after voters approved a $10 billion bond measure to help fund the bullet train. That is the segment the authority hopes to open in 2022.

Dan Richard, chairman of the High-Speed Rail Authority, said that once the public sees the 200-mph trains zipping across the landscape he expects there to be a major shift in how the project is perceived.

“People will say this is what transportation should look like,” Richard said.

The High-Speed Rail Authority releases a business plan every other year with cost estimates and construction timelines. Friday’s draft of the report was the first released under new chief executive Brian Kelly, who previously ran the state’s transportation agency. After a 60-day public comment period, the agency is expected to adopt a final business plan by May.

Kelly has promised to be more open about problems facing the rail project, which confronts an uncertain future in the face of opposition by congressional Republicans. They see it as a waste of money and can block the federal funding needed to pay for the line.

Kelly said Friday that the new business plan offers a strategy for moving forward with a rail project that Californians voted for despite “funding constraints.”

So far, the federal government has kicked in just $3.5 billion to the project — far short of the one-third contribution the state was hoping for — and private sector interest has been lacking.

The primary source of funding so far is the 2008 bond and the state’s cap-and-trade program, which forces companies to buy pollution permits if they emit too much greenhouse gases. The rail agency said it would need to be able to leverage future cap-and-trade money for loans, arguing that the pay-as-you-go approach does not work for multibillion-dollar projects.

Kelly said lenders would want to ensure the cap-and-trade program is enshrined in law through 2050, a tough sell in the Legislature, which barely passed a 10-year extension through 2030 last year.

“This continues to be an irresponsible project and an ever-growing burden on California’s taxpayers,” said Assemblyman Vince Fong, R-Bakersfield. “Making it worse, Sacramento Democrats continue to support this very expensive project as it goes off the rails as they raise taxes and fees every year — making California more unaffordable to live and work.”

The first segment in the Central Valley has been beset with problems, including difficulties in buying the land needed to build the tracks. Kelly said the rail authority’s earlier leaders had made a mistake by starting construction before enough land was in hand.

“That’s a practice that won’t be repeated,” he said.

The agency now has 70 percent of the 1,800 land parcels needed for its 119-mile Central Valley stretch, which Kelly said is enough to proceed with construction.

The project’s biggest champion, Gov. Jerry Brown, is trying to put the bullet train on stronger footing before he leaves office early next year. “I like trains, and I like high-speed trains even better,” he told lawmakers in his State of the State address in January.

Brown has argued that building a train that could travel from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in three hours would reduce the number of cars on the road, cutting emissions that contribute to climate change.

Friday’s revised cost estimates did nothing to silence the project’s critics.

“Please, Governor, put all of us taxpayers out of our misery,” state Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford (Kings County), said in a statement. “Let’s cut our losses.”