Mercury News – Completing the dream of linking San Francisco to Anaheim with direct, high-speed rail service is four years behind schedule and may cost at least $77.3 billion, roughly $13 billion more than planners anticipated, transportation officials said Friday.

The California High Speed Rail Authority released its updated business plan, a biennial report that offers a glimpse into the project’s construction costs, timeline, funding sources and ridership forecasts, showing a wide range of potential costs to complete the project — anywhere from 20 percent to 35 percent for each leg of construction.

The update comes on the heels of news that the first 119-mile segment between Madera and a station north of Bakersfield is forecast to cost $10.6 billion, up from an initial estimate of $6 billion, due to a “worst case” combination of construction delays and higher-than-anticipated land acquisition costs. That segment is still on track to be completed by 2022, according to the report.

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