WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration has cancelled an additional $175 million in funding for four projects related to the California high-speed rail project, saying it determined that advancing the funding “ius not justified” after reviewing the projects and given the current state of the high-speed rail project.
“As of today, the American people are done investing in California’s failed experiment,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a press release. “Instead, my department will focus on making travel great again by investing in well-managed projects that can make projects like high-speed rail a reality.”
Cancelled are:
— An $89.6 million award to the California High-Speed Rail Authority for the Le Grand overcrossing project on the Merced extension;
— $54.5 million to the California Department of Transportation for the high-speed station in Madera;
— $24.7 million to the Transbay Joint Powers Authority for final track and rail systems design for the downtown extension project connecting the current Caltrain terminus at 4th and King to the Salesforce Transit Center;
— $7.5 million to the city of San Jose for a grade-crossing separation project at Monterey Road.
The latest move follows the FRA’s cancellation of a $4 billion grant to the California High-Speed Rail Authority [see “FRA kills funding …,” Trains.com, July 15, 2025]. The FRA says the CHSRA has not complied with the terms of that grant; California is suing over the decision, saying it is based on political retribution rather than facts [see “California sues over FRA cancellation …,” Trains.com, July 18, 2025].
This a prudent reply to a failed project from its beginning to its current status. If California wants anymore rail money, Governor Newsom should agree to an in-depth, forensic audit outlining where all the money that has been spent on this boondoggle was spent and who benefitted. This should be done to set benchmarks for how these type of projects should be planned for, executed and results to timelines reported on in the future to ensure that the public benefits used to obtain the funding was based on facts and not just a way of bilking tax payers (in California and nationwide) of monies used in nefarious ways. How a project can be so far over budget without having even laid one mile of rail (supposedly the goal) in the time this endeavor has been underway is suspicious and deserves the forensic investigation that a full audit would employ to determine why this project is an abject failure in meeting the timely implementation of its benefits, which would appear to common people to have been a slush funds for contractors, consultants and perhaps even political operatives. I would expect that results would lead to heads rolling from the top of this stinking fish on down…
I don’t understand the cancellation of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority’s grant. That is still a basic part of the Caltrans systems plan to deliver commuters to downtown.
You’ve got a point there, George. If CalHSR agrees to return all the federal grants thus far for the high-speed debacle, then the federals can pay for this one grant.
The article brings up a point I often try to make. The true, overall and total subsidy of a project can be hidden by breaking it into all these little grants.