Newsom says high-speed rail ‘hard work’ is over. Who is he kidding? | Opinion
Gov. Gavin Newsom left home in Marin to visit the San Joaquin Valley this week to declare that “all of the hard work is behind us” when it comes to high-speed rail.
Newsom thinks we’re turning the corner on the state’s most expensive and controversial transportation infrastructure project. It’s similar to when he says homelessness is on the way down.
Speech by speech, Tik by Tok, Newsom is crafting a shining California narrative that will be his backdrop for his expected candidacy for president. But he is cherry-picking facts to the point of creating fiction.
Here is what the governor said on Tuesday to commemorate the completion of a railhead facility in Kern County:
‘Here on the high-speed rail system, we’re now in the process of starting to lay track, 119-mile first phase, fully funded because of the investments we’ll make through the Cap and Invest Program through 2045. Seventeen hundred people every single day, union jobs go to work on this project. Fifty-eight large-scale structures have been complete, 29 others under way, 99% of the environmental work done.
“All of the hard work behind us. Now we’re going to see the fruits of that. We’re going to start seeing precisely what you see here, real tracks, real progress.”
The high-speed rail numbers that matter
Here, instead, is what is really happening.
One of Newsom’s first decisions as governor in 2019 was to abandon any effort during his tenure to finance and build the original vision of a high-speed rail line from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and instead, to build a line between Bakersfield and Merced. That happens to require 171 miles of track, not the 119 miles Newsom is celebrating.
This Bakersfield-Merced segment is not fully funded with money in the bank. Instead of directing some of the budget surpluses when he had them, Newsom is banking on future governors and legislators to direct funds from polluters purchasing emission credits, to the tune of $1 billion until 2045.
Fast train service between Merced and Bakersfield would lose a lot of money for an obvious reason — it doesn’t serve the major population centers in the state. The California High-Speed Rail Authority in September estimated that train fares may not even cover half of the operating costs. Newsom’s Central Valley train idea never made financial sense.
A truly sustainable train service would require reaching one of those population centers. A line from Gilroy to Bakersfield would have an operating profit margin estimated somewhere between 64% and 157%. A line reaching Southern California, Gilroy to Palmdale, would have an operating profit somewhere between 91% and 214%.
These are the kind of high-speed rail numbers that really matter. And they were missing from Newsom’s on Tuesday.
This is the same kind of spin that the governor is weaving on homelessness in California these days, he has turned the corner on this humanitarian crisis, and that the state has given cities all the tools and funding to finish the job.
The mission is not accomplished. “All indications from those who work with homeless individuals and organizations is that homelessness is up, not down,” said Mark Merin, a Sacramento attorney who has worked closely on this issue for year.
Laying the groundwork for his own undoing
We have a lot to be proud of, here in California. But our unresolved problems cannot be glossed over with some Newsom shaky statistics.
All that Newsom is doing is exposing his weak side that will be his undoing as a candidate for president. He has a tendency to think he can talk his way out of just about any problem. His flimsy narratives on how everything is so rosy in California will come crashing down when they are called to question.
This is not time for a victory lap for Newsom and California high-speed rail. It is a moment to acknowledge that the truly hard work awaits some future governor.