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California’s delayed, over-budget high-speed train from Los Angeles to San Francisco is running fast in one direction: Increased rolling costs, now estimated at $126 billion.
“Today, we’re estimating just over $125 billion in efficiency,” California High Speed Rail Authority board member Anthony Williams told CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday. “I think $126 billion is the current estimate of that.”
That’s nearly four times the $33 billion mark presented to voters in 2008, making the long-delayed project a black eye in Democrat-held California, derided as the latest political example of “waste” in deep-blue America and a “train to nowhere.”
“Now we’re in 2026: No trains; no route set; it was a complete bait and switch,” Rep. Vince Fong, R-Calif., told “60 Minutes,” saying the project “needs to stop.”
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Construction continues on the California high-speed rail project in Fresno County, Calif., on March 24, 2025. (David Paul Morris / Bloomberg)
“The California High-Speed Rail nightmare is a prime example of government abandonment and mismanagement.”
A long-troubled high-speed rail project in California is facing renewed scrutiny after state Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin conceded that many of its critics have a point.
“There were mistakes made,” Omishakin told CBS. “Some criticism of this work I think is fair.”
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“I don’t think the voters fully understood and we in the public sector were not taken steps to launch this project,” said Omishakin.
Referring to Gov. Gavin Newsom from California, President Donald Trump called the California project “the worst cost, I’ve ever seen,” a statement he had in the past reserved for the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Jerome Powell’s Federal Reserve Building in Washington, DC.
“This administration is working to usher in the Golden Age of Transportation,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told CBS in a statement. “That idea includes a high-speed train and we are looking at opportunities to build that infrastructure properly in America.
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“This administration will not stand for boondoggle projects like Newsom’s Train to Nowhere that waste billions of taxpayer dollars and deliver nothing to the American people,” Duffy said. “Under President Trump, America is building again. We repaid the Newsom disaster and created the first Trump Infrastructure Dividend. Those dollars will now fund critical projects that improve safety on rail networks across America.”
Newsom himself cast doubt on the full San Francisco-to-Los Angeles plan in 2019, and the project now faces an estimated $90 billion funding gap.
“For $10 billion, Elon Musk put 300 rockets into orbit; for $11 billion, the state of California built a 1,600-foot high train without a train,” said Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar in 2024.
State officials say they remain confident more money can be found to go into the project, but for now California’s railroad stands as an expensive symbol of ambition, delays, and deep public skepticism.
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“The 494 miles of completing this without the help of the federal government will be a challenge: There’s no doubt about that,” Omishakin said.
In the nearly two decades since work began, no trail has been built, and the only visible progress is on the section of the Central Valley between Bakersfield and Merced, according to the report.
The original opening of the project is now 2033, much later than originally promised. Critics, including Bakersfield’s Fong, a member of the House Transportation Committee.
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“The business plan that was released in 2008 had a negative outlook,” said Fong. “You know, ‘This is what we think is going to happen.’
“And it was clear that they didn’t have the right information.”
Fong sought oversight and accountability for the waste, including 597 change orders that cost more than $2.3 billion as of November 2025 alone, which is about 7% of the project’s original $33 billion budget.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, right, and California High-Speed Rail Authority Ian Choudri, center, greet members of Iron Workers Local 155 at the Southern Railhead in the Wasco/Shafter area in Wasco, Calif., Feb. 3, 2026. (Damian Dovarganes/AP)
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“Taxpayers deserve transparency and accountability,” Fong wrote in a statement in February. “The high speed rail nightmare is a clear example of structural mismanagement.
“Reckless, repeated contract amendments have wasted resources and precious tax dollars. Hardworking California taxpayers cannot let this continue. This project must be canceled before more money and time is wasted.”
