Donald Trump said on Wednesday the transportation department is rescinding $4bn in US government funding for California\u2019s high-speed rail project.<\/p>\n
The department said there was no viable path forward for California\u2019s high-speed rail project and it was considering potentially clawing back additional funding related to the project.<\/p>\n
The Federal Railroad Administration issued a 315-page report last month citing missed deadlines, budget shortfalls and questionable ridership projections.<\/p>\n
One key issue cited is that California had not identified $7bn in additional funding needed to build an initial 171-mile segment between Merced and Bakersfield, California.<\/p>\n
The California high-speed rail system is a planned two-phase 800-mile (1,287km) system with speeds of up to 220mph that aims to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles\/Anaheim, and in the second phase, extend north to Sacramento and south to San Diego.<\/p>\n
The California High-Speed Rail Authority said previously it strongly disagrees with the administration\u2019s conclusions \u201cwhich are misguided and do not reflect the substantial progress made to deliver high-speed rail in California\u201d.<\/p>\n
It noted California governor Gavin Newsom\u2019s budget proposal before the legislature extends at least $1bn per year in funding for the next 20 years \u201cproviding the necessary resources to complete the project\u2019s initial operating segment\u201d.<\/p>\n
The authority noted in May there is active civil construction along 119 miles in the state\u2019s Central Valley.<\/p>\n
Transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said: \u201cNewsom and California\u2019s high-speed rail boondoggle are the definition of government incompetence and possibly corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newsom responded on social media: \u201cWon\u2019t be taking advice from the guy who can\u2019t keep planes in the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n
Voters approved $10bn for the project in 2008, but the costs have risen sharply. The transportation department under former president Joe Biden awarded the project about $4bn.<\/p>\n
The entire San Francisco-to-Los Angeles project was initially supposed to be completed by 2020 for $33bn, but has now jumped from $89bn to $128bn.<\/p>\n
In 2021, Biden restored a $929m grant for California\u2019s high-speed rail that Trump had revoked in 2019 after the Republican president called the project a \u201cdisaster\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump said on Wednesday the transportation department is rescinding $4bn in US government funding for California\u2019s high-speed…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":68901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-68900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114866541744898622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}