Ignore the naysayers, California high-speed rail on track to open in 2033 | Opinion

California’s often-criticized high-speed rail hopes to be on track to carry the first passengers from Bakersfield to Merced within eight years, but its CEO said future growth will depend on a boost from the state to complete the country’s first bullet train.

California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri, in a Wednesday meeting with the McClatchy California Editorial Board, said the first steel rails for the electrified system will be laid starting next year. Work on the downtown Fresno train station will start next year and be completed by 2033 when rail service is expected to start. The authority will select the high-speed rail maintenance facility within a couple of months.

Even though the Trump administration is taking steps to deny the rail system $4 billion in federal funding that was approved under Joe Biden, Choudri is banking on future state governors and legislators to steadily fund the program, progress depending on how much and how fast he gets the money. He’s right. Trump can’t truly kill this project. Only we can do so if we stop investing in this partially built system.

Train stations in Fresno, Bakersfield, Merced and other cities will also be completed in time for the late 2032/early 2033 timetable that Choudri announced.

“The good-news is that the progress that we have made in the Central Valley, and especially in the City of Fresno, is significant,” Choudri said during a 50-minute meeting. “We are turning the page.”

As visible proof of that progress, the rail authority held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday morning for the opening of the Tulare Street underpass, a vital connection between downtown and historic Chinatown that had been closed to traffic since 2017.

That optimism hasn’t been universal, as evidenced by the Trump administration’s effort to claw back $4 billion in grants that had been given to the nation’s first high-speed rail project. Choudri’s talk with the editorial board came on the same day that Missouri Sen. Joni Ernst, a Republican, held up California’s high-speed rail project as the linchpin of “taxpayer-funded megaprojects that are going off the rails due to poor planning, mismanagement, political plotting, and free fast money from the federal government.”

Choudri, who has been on the job for 10 months, shrugs off the criticism.

“I don’t talk to the skeptics a lot,” said Choudri, “except putting our plans forward so people can actually see what we are trying to do. If anyone would like to talk about our plan and would like to discuss it and have a better idea, different from what we are thinking, we are more than happy to hear that.”

There are several challenges to overcome before the first operational high-speed rail becomes a reality. The rail authority will release an updated report on its plans in about two weeks.

The constant attacks from the Trump administration and state Republicans is not the major problem right now, he said.

It is common for major projects to exceed their original estimates, said Choudri, a field engineer for the Chunnel project that connects France and England via a tunnel under the English Channel. The original $6.2 billion cost ballooned to $14.5 billion when it was completed in 1994.

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 authorized $25 billion for a 41,000-mile system of highways, but the planned 12-year project took 35 years and $114 billion to complete. Critics “never talk about it because it was a national initiative and we said, ‘We gotta do it. It’s important. It’s good for the national economy,’” said Choudri.

“The point of no return”

If the funding is available, Choudri said the Bakersfield-Merced line could easily be extended to the Bay area and Southern California. So could extensions to San Diego and Sacramento.

That is why the rail authority is banking on help from the state Legislature to set aside $1 billion a year for 20 years from the cap-and-trade program. The rail authority would prefer a greater amount, like $2 billion a year for 15 years.

That certainty in funding will open the doors for private investments, said Choudri, because they’ll see the viability of getting a return on investment. Those investments can speed up the construction process, he said, and allow additional commercialization of the system like light freight and fiber optic leasing.

Choudri also supports AB 445, a bill by state Sen. Scott Weiner, D-San Francisco, that would streamline how the rail authority handles permits and approvals from other entities like utility companies with infrastructure that the rail tracks must cross.

In the early years of construction, said Choudri, “we couldn’t get the utilities out of the way in time (and) contractors, with thousands of their laborers and crews, were sitting and waiting.”

It makes no sense to shut down construction of the high-speed rail, said Choudri. It would take decades to settle lawsuits with little to show of the $13 billion spent already.

“At this point in time when we are saying we are going to put down tracks next year, that’s the point of no return,” said Choudri.

High-speed rail is a plus for the Central Valley and the state. Sacramento is not known for making long-term financial promises on just about anything, but legislators can be their own worst enemy when it comes to high speed rail. The greater stability we can give this program, the sooner the trains will start running and even expanding their service. Indecision is the deadliest and costliest alternative of them all.