California High-Speed Rail: Why the Trains Still Aren’t Running

Imagine buying a ticket in San Francisco, boarding a fast train, and arriving in Los Angeles without driving or flying. That was the promise behind California’s high-speed rail project. In 2008, voters approved nearly ten billion dollars in bonds toward a system then estimated at about forty-five billion dollars, with service envisioned by 2020. As of October 2026, there is no operable high-speed rail line. Construction is concentrated in the Central Valley, while the current first-stage plan would connect Merced and Bakersfield—not yet San Francisco and Los Angeles.

This is an enormous engineering project, but also a political and financial one. The state must assemble a continuous route, build structures and track, and ultimately connect trains to major cities. To contain costs, the plan has shifted from entirely dedicated high-speed tracks toward sharing existing rail infrastructure in some areas. That saves construction expense, but shared lines can impose lower speed limits and require coordination with other train operators. The first proposed passenger segment is in the Central Valley; completing that segment would still leave the expensive links to the Bay Area and Los Angeles.

So why has it taken so long? A 2018 state audit identified a consequential early decision: the rail authority started major Central Valley construction before it had secured enough land, worked out utility relocations, or completed agreements with local governments and other railroads. Picture a contractor ready to build, but unable to enter a parcel—or discovering that a buried utility must move first. According to that audit, those foreseeable problems contributed to more than six hundred million dollars in construction-contract changes. That figure describes findings at the time, not the project’s total cost of delays. The broader lesson is that starting construction early did not make the unfinished planning disappear; it pushed some of its costs onto the worksite.

Then comes the funding trap. The authority’s latest business-plan figures, as reported in October 2026, put the estimated cost of the full system somewhere between one hundred twenty-six and two hundred thirty-one billion dollars, with full buildout expected by 2040. Those are projections, not money already in the bank or a guaranteed opening date. Federal officials withdrew billions in funding in 2025. And a state inspector general’s July 2026 warning said the authority could run out of cash by December 2027, casting doubt even on finishing the planned Merced-to-Bakersfield segment. A partially built corridor cannot deliver the statewide journey voters imagined; securing funds for each next piece remains a central obstacle.

Now to the word ‘corruption.’ There is a serious, documented spending scandal—but wasteful or prohibited reimbursements are not, by themselves, proof that someone took a bribe. In September 2026, the rail project’s inspector general reported nearly five hundred ninety-three thousand dollars in unallowable consultant-travel reimbursements. Investigators examined about 1.15 million dollars in claims from four firms, out of more than two million dollars in travel reimbursements. They found trips that lacked required advance approval and expenses involving first-class travel, international airfare, and rides to places including a nightclub and a cigar lounge. The problem was not simply where someone went: it was that the authority paid claims without adequately establishing whether they were allowable or necessary for state business. The watchdog’s findings also echo the older state audit, which found weak documentation when the authority reviewed some major consulting contracts.

The findings are contested in part. At an October 9 board meeting, an executive from AECOM-Fluor, one of the firms examined, said its review found no substantive departure from established processes; another said it had identified only about one thousand dollars in overbilling. The inspector general, by contrast, had flagged nearly three hundred eighty thousand dollars in that firm’s travel expenses as unallowable. That disagreement has not been resolved merely because either side stated its position. The authority says it has paused travel payments to the four firms, is reviewing claims, and is seeking to recover questionable payments.

The latest political fight is over who gets to enforce accountability. On October 1, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have given the inspector general more flexibility to hire skilled staff and make smaller contracts. The inspector general said staffing vacancies were already delaying scrutiny of costly construction-contract changes. Newsom argued the office should meet its needs through existing state safeguards instead of receiving broad exemptions. Eight days later, the rail authority’s board voted seven to two to limit chief executive Ian Choudri’s power to manage contracts under twenty-five million dollars and require in-house lawyers to approve contract actions. Those are responses to the scandal, not evidence that every questionable payment has been recovered or every oversight problem fixed.

That is where California high-speed rail stands: construction, but no running train; a first segment that still needs dependable financing; and a public agency under pressure to show it can control the money it already spends. The travel investigation matters on its own terms. The larger test is whether better oversight can keep the next land dispute, utility surprise, or contract change from becoming another costly delay.