Plagued by years of funding shortages and spiraling costs, California’s beleaguered high-speed rail project suffered another unexpected blow this month in a new report that more than tripled the cost estimate for the San Francisco-to-San Jose segment to a staggering $5.3 billion.
The new price tag is part of a report that completes a years-long environmental clearance process for the 48-mile corridor that would carry bullet trains down the Peninsula on electrified Caltrain tracks at 110 miles per hour and eventually on to Southern California. It outlines three stops, a controversial rail yard in Brisbane, and money allocated to everything from protecting Monarch butterflies to restoring Bent-flowered fiddleneck habitat.
But the environmental document released last week also includes the new price tag for the recommended route through the Peninsula which is more than three times the figure penciled into the High-Speed Rail Authority’s 2022 business plan.
