On Wednesday, U.S. Transport Secretary Sean Duffy threatened to halt all funds for California’s high-speed rail projects, calling it “boondoggle” without going on a viable path.
In a 310-page report and a letter to Ian Choudri, CEO of the California High Speed Railroad Agency, Duffy claims “a trajectory of project delays, mismanagement, waste and surge in costs,” claiming that taxpayers were already at around $6.9 billion and could not lay the truck.
“I have promised Americans that I will be a good custodian of hard-earned taxes. This report reveals a cold and difficult truth. Chsra has no viable path to completing this project on deadline or budget,” says Duffy. “Chsra has been notified. If they are not delivered at the end of the transaction, there may be a time when these funds flow to other projects.
Duffy responded to Choudri’s report in 37 days and could then terminate the $4 billion grant, he said.
This map shows the proposed complete “Phase 1” of the California high-speed rail that connects the Bay Area to Los Angeles County and Anaheim. AerialImage shows the construction work of Hanford Viduct, part of Central Valley’s largest high-speed rail project, as part of Hanford’s California High-speed rail project on February 12, 2025. (Getty Images) Aerial image shows the enormous pillars that make up the base of the California high-speed rail viaduct in Hanford, California on January 29, 2024 (KTLA)
Voters approved $100 billion in bond money in 2008, covering a third of the cost of building a railroad line connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco, with the aim of getting trains up and running by 2020.
The current construction only includes a 171-mile segment from Meld to Bakersfield, California’s Central Valley, and officials hope to begin testing in 2028.
In 2023, then-President Joe Biden awarded a $3 billion grant to help authorities complete the first phase of the project. That grant comes after he revived a $1 billion grant to high-speed rail authorities that the first Trump administration had previously blocked.
The California High Speed Railroad Agency did not immediately respond to KTLA’s request for comment.
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Choudri, who was appointed CEO of California’s High Speed Railroad Bureau in August, is tasked with revitalizing the country’s largest infrastructure project amid the surge.
“We started this, but we haven’t succeeded,” Choudri said, explaining what led him to work after his job on a European highway system. “That was the main reason I say, let’s go in, turn it all around and get it back to where it should be. When we fix all the issues, stabilize the funds and we decide we want to do it, we show the world that we actually do it.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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