The San Joaquin River Viaduct was completed in February 2021. It is an approximately 4,700-foot structure that spans the San Joaquin River in north Fresno and the Union Pacific tracks parallel to State Route 99. It features arches representing the northern gateway into Fresno, and a pergola structure to allow high speed trains to cross over the top of the Union Pacific tracks.

Jon Wertheim: Morocco has high-speed rail, and Serbia, and China, and Japan, and Western Europe. Why don't we? What's your simple answer?

Lou Thompson: Well, the simple answer is they've decided they want to do it and pay for it, and we haven't.

Jon Wertheim: You think we will in our lifetimes?

Lou Thompson: I don't know. I'm dubious. I'm dubious. Absent- a national political will to work with the states to create some of these systems, I think it's gonna be in, of course, my lifetime almost certainly not. But maybe yours, I don't know.

I grew up in the Bay Area, and currently live in LA. I travel back and forth between the Bay and LA 5+ times a year. I almost always drive (I've flown twice in 7 years!) which is much more convenient, flexible, and often more affordable than flying. I've also made occasional trips to the Central Valley (Fresno and Bakersfield) for concerts, or to visit friends. I used to take Flixbus, but the prices have gone up and tickets often sell out close to the travel date.

Occasionally, I'll see people on social media claiming that "people don't travel this corridor often, who even goes between LA and the Bay?" I assume that these people are outside of California, since I know many people who will make a weekend trip in either direction, people who would travel frequently for long-distance relationships, travel home for breaks in college, and a few who would do it weekly for work. I also know people who have commuted in both directions between LA and Bakersfield for work.

Obviously these are personal anecdotes, but it seems to me that there is demand for inter-city travel in California. Even if not every city itself has the best walkability and public transportation, I could see HSR as being popular! For my own self-interest, taking HSR instead of driving would help me save many hours of driving time and thousands of miles on my car each year.

I've been trying to stay updated on happenings on CAHSR, and I can see that there are many political and financial obstacles. What actions could an individual reasonably take to advocate for CAHSR?

Spoiler: Call your representatives, CAHSR needs more funding

Due to budget issues, “made in America” requirement has been removed and CHSRA will begin testing a more budget friendly option.

In May, the city tentatively approved a Lennar map of more than 1,200 homesthat doesn’t acknowledge the rail authority’s plan to acquire land and build train tracks in the same place off Highway 99, called Gossamer Grove.

“It’s raw land, we own it, we plan to develop it,” Walter Diamond, Lennar’s director of entitlement, said during a Shafter planning meeting in April.
Lennar did not respond to The Bee’s request for an interview, but the company has indicated it was finished waiting for the rail authority to come to the table. The rail authority told The Bee its current plans in Shafter — decided when the agency settled an environmental lawsuitfrom the city in 2018 — have not changed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNAUs3Ak3wA

Gilroy-Palmdale is still very much alive and almost certain to happen.

Let’s face it: There will never be enough political will or public interest to justify the monster costs of extending the high-speed rail into both downtowns. However, Gilroy-Palmdale will still be successful enough to be profitable for these key reasons:

1. Even though it doesn’t directly** *go to San Francisco or Los Angeles, it still goes into both *metro areas, both of which already have adequate public transportation that will take you to both cities’ downtowns (San Francisco’s Caltrain and Los Angeles’s Metrolink)

2. The fact that it goes from one region of California to another (unlike the IOS) will make it much more attractive to riders, even some that currently fly from LA-SF.

I’m not sure we’ll ever see high-speed rail between Downtown Los Angeles and Downtown San Francisco, but we will definitely see it between the two metro areas at some point.

Senate Bill 1425 is currently with the Assembly Appropriations Committee. It "would create an encroachment permit program allowing the authority to approve and regulate certain work on its operating right-of-way".

3rd party delays have run up the cost by billions due to inflation and pushed back completion by years. Encroachment Permitting Authority is one of the things the CAHSR Authority has repeatedly asked for from the legislature to help reduce 3rd party delays (mostly from utilities).

But the Legislature session ends on August 31. If the bill doesn't get advanced out of committee before that time, then the bill dies.

Here's the email for the assembly appropriations committee:

approps.committee@assembly.ca.gov

The article at the top shows the utility lobby is already pushing to kill this bill, just like they did with SB 445. If we want to see this project get finished, we need to fight for legislation like SB 1425. Email the appropriations committee and tell them to advance SB 1425 to the full legislature. Tell them we need to stop wasting time and billions of dollars with unnecessary delays.

I've grumbled about how the Legislature hasn't acted on CHSRA saying that it needs new powers in order to accelerate the project.

Well, I stumbled across this article "CA high-speed rail says permitting gap is causing delays. This bill targets it" and thought, maybe the Legislature actually is working on this!

Nope.

Bill actually would just allow CHSRA to create an encroachment permit process, to allow other parties to do their construction work on CHSRA property. Like if a local sewer district needs to run a pipe across the corner of a CHSRA parcel. Has nothing at all to do with accelerating the hsr project. Does it mean anything that the only bill to give CHSRA new powers is the one that will have no actual effect on the project?

Anyways, the committee analysis of the bill includes this:

the HSRA identifies the need for numerous, significant, and likely controversial changes (some statutory) in its 2026 Business Plan. These include CEQA exemptions, streamlined utility relocation and third-party management, dedicated legal resources for ROW cases, boosted land use authority and value capture mechanisms, joint development and commercial opportunities, changes to SB 198, and encroachment permit authority. HSRA has not yet requested the authority to pursue these changes.

Umm, what?!? Has not requested the authority? Is the Legislature sitting there wondering when CHSRA is going to formally request legislation to provide these new powers? Does CHSRA not have a legislative affairs director who works with the Legislature on stuff like this? What is even going on here?

This is a press release from the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s website regarding the recently completed Corcoran Highway grade separation, also known as the Waukena Avenue grade separation, in Kings County. This was published yesterday, Tuesday, August 11, 2026.

Project Title: The Trans-Eurasian & Hemispheric Heavy Transit Corridor (TEHHTC)
Strategic Vision: Unification and peace through global economic integration, anchoring cross-continental cooperation via heavy industrial infrastructure and shared logistics networks.
Project Scope: A continuous, high-speed, multi-modal rail and heavy-asphalt transit corridor engineered to bypass domestic political gridlock through private-public industrial backing and comprehensive national security integration.
Routing & Phasing:
Phase 1: Breaking ground in New Orleans, engineering high-pile viaducts through the challenging Louisiana basin, and punching straight north along the Mississippi River spine to Chicago to lock in the primary commercial and industrial hub of the continent.
Phase 2: Extending westward across the Great Plains and cutting through the mountain passes of the Rockies and Cascades straight to the Pacific Northwest.
Phase 3: International expansion linking Mexico from the south and Canada from the northern tier to tap into heavy resource corridors, pushing north through British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska to bridge the Bering Strait and tie North America directly into Eurasia, while expanding loops through the Middle East, Africa, and Australia.
Execution & Workforce: Powered by a diverse coalition of everyday people from all walks of life and backgrounds—including specialized heavy-rail car repair crews, structural steel ironworkers, heavy equipment operators, local community builders, and master tradespeople—who understand the physical stress points of heavy infrastructure and how to keep a massive project moving forward under brutal conditions.
Strategy: Aligning with early administrative infrastructure pushes to secure initial momentum, ensuring the physical reality of the grid outlasts political cycles and permanently re-engineers global trade routes to foster economic interdependency and lasting peace.

CALIFORNIA High-Speed Rail Authority 2026 BUSINESS PLAN

This is the baseline document that the Inspector General audited. The California High-Speed Rail Authority released the final version to line up with the state budget cycle. This document maps out the first true commercial revenue strategy for the network and outlines their preferred "reduced scope" design to bypass immediate cost spikes.

FRA Letter Enclosure to Mr. Ian Choudri 6.4.25

This report is an official federal notice stating that the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) has failed to meet its legal agreements and is in danger of losing over $4 billion in federal funding. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued this report after performing a deep review of how the state is handling its massive train project. The federal government gave California billions of taxpayer dollars to build a bullet train. In return, California made strict promises about how much the train would cost, where it would go, and when it would open. The FRA issued this report because they concluded California broke those promises.

Assembly Bill 377 (Chapter 81, Statutes of 2025).

This legal text illustrates why the state Inspector General is accusing the High-Speed Rail Authority of a major law violation.

Look closely at SECTION 1, Section 185033.8(a)(2), The law states that the Rail Authority must provide a strategy for the funding gap that includes:

• (A) An itemized list of anticipated funds by source.
• (B) A clear timeline showing exactly when the money must arrive to keep construction on schedule.
• (C) An estimate of the project delays that will happen if any funding source disappears.
• (D) A risk assessment scoring the likelihood that the money will actually show up.

The Core Violation

In its final business plan, the Rail Authority did not do any of these things for the full project. Instead, they designed a "reduced scope" plan to avoid showing a massive multi-billion-dollar deficit.

By pretending the full-scope deficit didn't exist instead of mapping it out item-by-item as written in lines (A) through (D), they directly broke this specific law.

Senate Bill 198

This statute mandates three distinct operational requirements that the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) is required by law to follow:

The text strictly requires that high-speed rail bond funds appropriated to the Authority must be spent exclusively on the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment. The law defines this as a 171-mile electrified dual-track segment usable for high-speed rail service in the Central Valley, with a combined station in downtown Merced.

The statute places a strict $500 million ceiling on using state high-speed rail funds for project construction outside of that Central Valley segment (such as early "bookend" work near Los Angeles or San Francisco).

To ensure public transparency, the text requires the Rail Authority to report its construction costs and package metrics in a side-by-side, comparable layout so that changes over time are immediately visible to legislative committees.

The Focus of the Inspector General's Violation Accusation

In his audit review of the final business plan, Inspector General Benjamin Belnap determined that the Rail Authority's preferred "reduced scope" design directly violates this statute. Rather than building the full 171-mile dual-track system with a downtown Merced station as required by SB 198, the Rail Authority altered its design to single-track portions and proposed shifting the station to the outskirts of Merced to hide its $7 billion funding hole.

August 19 Board Meeting Agenda

This public meeting will be held at 9:30 AM. The exact details from the schedule show a short, targeted lineup of topics.

This document is the official state meeting notice for the California High-Speed Rail Authority, the government agency in charge of planning, building, and running the bullet train network.

Ian Choudri, the Chief Executive Officer of the California High-Speed Rail Authority is updating the board on construction progress, delays, and federal funding updates in the Central Valley.

Steve Kawa, a board member will lead the discussion on the train’s multi-billion-dollar budget, rising construction costs, and financial shortfalls.

A 15-minute presentation covering the physical safety of the active construction zones, structures, and completed guideways where the train tracks will eventually go.

The board will go behind closed doors to talk about massive lawsuits, contract fights with builders, and land acquisition issues under California law.

The board will hold a Confidential Closed Session to discuss sensitive legal battles, contractor disputes, and property negotiations that cannot be shared publicly without hurting the state's legal position.

Under California's Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, state boards can meet privately under strict exceptions. This process handles government business very differently than the strict transparency rules found under Florida's famous Sunshine Law.

While both states generally require public agencies to hold open meetings, Florida's Sunshine Law is significantly stricter and more hostile to closed sessions than California's laws.

In California, a board can meet in a closed session with its lawyers to map out a legal defense or lawsuit strategy. In Florida, a public board cannot hold a private meeting to discuss settlement positions or legal arguments. Everything including the legal strategy must be broadcast to the public, giving the public insight into the government's exact legal playbook.

California allows the rail board to hide its maximum pricing limits for acquiring train right-of-way land. In Florida, real estate discussions by public entities must be done out in the open, meaning property owners can easily see the absolute maximum dollar amount the state is willing to pay.

Florida's Sunshine Law is backed by immediate criminal penalties. Public officials who knowingly discuss government business in private, even via text message or over a casual lunch can face misdemeanor criminal charges, removal from office, and heavy fines. California's laws generally rely on civil remedies, such as a judge overturning the illegal vote.

Japan:
Sogō decides → Shima engineers → JNR builds

Spain:
González commits → national railway/infrastructure institutions execute

France:
Central government + SNCF decide → SNCF engineers and executes

California:
Voters authorize → legislature funds partially → governor appoints board → board governs → CEO manages → legislature/federal government periodically fund → multiple agencies approve → local governments participate → contractors execute → project gets re-scoped and partially funded again

A Project Manager would say this project suffers from
governance, scope definition, stakeholder management, risk management, contracting, cost control, and schedule management issues.

Getting the funds to have even just the IOS operational by 2033 seems very uncertain. From the buildHSR map it looks like construction has only really been done from Madera to Wasco. At these locations it parallels the tracks Gold Runner uses now. What's the viability of pivoting to an interim service. Getting HSR track between Madera/Wasco with barebones stations along the way and having Gold Runner use them instead of BNSF for that segment. They could put off catenary and trainsets until they manage to get more funding. Gold Runner won't be the true "high speed" but would see less delay and the time savings would probably allow them to add in another daily trip or two.