The Federal Railroad Administration moved to block four California high-speed rail projects and the Trump administration withdrew more than $175 million in federal funding, citing waste and lack of progress. The administration labeled the program a failed experiment and said projected costs reached $135 billion, more than quadrupling the original estimate. Critics including President Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called the effort a taxpayer-funded failure and noted that no high-speed rail track has been laid in twenty years. The funding cuts targeted specific projects totaling tens of millions and followed an earlier move to slash roughly $4 billion in grants.
President Donald Trump's administration said it withdrew more than $175 million in federal funding from projects related to California's high-speed rail, in the latest move to kneecap the long-delayed plan to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco via train. The Federal Railroad Administration moved to block four projects related to the high-speed rail, according to a Tuesday statement from the US Department of Transportation, citing waste and lack of progress in what it called a failed experiment.
Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have long been strong critics of the project that has been marred with cost overruns and constant delays, arguing that the effort has wasted taxpayers' dollars. In twenty years, California has not been able to lay a single track of high-speed rail, Duffy said in a statement. Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg didn't care about these failures and dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the state's wish list of related fantasy projects. The waste ends here.
The slashed projects include the Le Grand Overcrossing Project on the Merced Extension totaling $89.6 million in federal commitments, and the $7.5 million earmarked for the Southern San Jose Grade Separations. The FRA is also moving to pull back the $24.6 million in aid for the DTX Final Design for Track and Rail Systems project, and the $54.5 million earmarked for the Madera High-Speed Rail Station project, according to the Tuesday release.
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