An new analysis of CA High Speed Rail Authority documents by Californians for Responsible Rail Design calculates that the costs of Phase 1–Los Angeles to San Francisco, has shot up over 50 percent.
In 2009, legislators withheld money from the Authority until they finally produced a business plan in
December. The revised business plan showed costs of $43 billion and required higher fares and more
private investment, which would divert system profits to equity investors instead of towards system
extensions north and south.
Our analysis, based solely on official and publicly available Authority documents, determines the
current project costs are approximately $65 billion.
Read more here.
Back in 2008, Reason’s Due Diligence report on the CA HSR plan predicted the costs of Phase 1 would be close to $65 billion.