The California High-Speed Rail Authority board of directors holds its monthly meeting today in Sacramento. It comes against the backdrop of a news report suggesting that the state’s bullet train will offer future riders one of the cheapest fares of any of the world’s high-speed rail systems.

The rail authority currently projects a one-way fare of $86 between Los Angeles and San Francisco when the system welcomes its first riders in 2028.

That works out to less than 20 cents a mile, according to an analysis by the Los Angeles Times, which would be easier on the pocketbook than the 434-mile trip between Milan and Salerno on Italy’s Frecciarossa, the 411-mile excursion between Paris and Marseille on France’s TGV and the 320-mile jaunt from Tokyo to Osaka on Japan’s Shinkansen.

We understand that supporters of high-speed rail have convinced themselves that California’s planned bullet train will be up and rolling 13 years from now and that a ticket from L.A. to San Francisco will cost a mere $86. But to buy that improbable scenario requires a suspension of disbelief of which this editorial page is incapable.

Forget about Italy’s Frecciariso, France’s TGV and Japan’s Shinkansen. We need look no further Amtrak’s Acela Express service in the nation’s Northeast corridor to realize how unlikely it is that California’s bullet train will transport passengers up and down the Golden State for 20 cents a mile.

Indeed, the “value” price a month from yesterday for a one-way ticket between Boston and Washington was $176 on Acela – which is the closest thing the U.S. has to high-speed rail service. That real-world fare works out to nearly double the price per mile of the projected ticket price for California’s bullet train.

Now if this were the first time the state high-speed rail authority’s numbers were on the dubious side, it might be forgiven. But we’ve seen nothing but questionable numbers from the rail authority since 2008, when California voters were duped into approving $9.9 billion worth of bonds to help build the most expensive public works project in state history.

The total cost for the system was supposed to be $33 billion. Now it’s $68 billion. The high-speed trip from L.A. to San Francisco was supposed to be 2 hours and 40 minutes. Now it’s 3 hours and 10 minutes. The one-way ticket between the two cities was to be $55. Now it’s $86.

That’s why we find it hard to believe any of the promises made by the rail authority.