NICK'S VIEW - California’s high-speed rail (HSR) is not a transportation failure; it is a governance failure. It did not collapse because infrastructure is hard to build, it collapsed because California’s governance architecture is not designed to deliver megaprojects.
The August 23, 2026, "60 Minutes" segment “Ghost Train,” led by correspondent Jon Wertheim, underscored what I have argued for more than a decade: the project is failing because of planning errors, management breakdowns, and the absence of both sound project design and the institutional structure needed to carry it out.
California’s high-speed rail remains technically alive, but its glacial progress and soaring costs have made it a veritable “ghost train,” a promise that lingers across the landscape without delivering meaningful transportation.
The project was promoted as transformative, promising to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco at true bullet-train speeds. Instead, it has become a symbol of uncertainty over whether the original vision can ever be realized. With certainty, the original promise was political marketing, not engineering reality.
Today, the project is mired in land-acquisition disputes, lawsuits, complex environmental reviews, and dependence on costly private consultants instead of in-house expertise. Critics, including regional leaders, argue that the billions committed to high-speed rail could have been used to modernize existing urban transit, bus networks, affordable housing, or water infrastructure.
The failure began at birth. The state promised a bullet train with no route, no land, no environmental clearance, and no institutional capacity—the combination of people, systems, resources, leadership, and routines that allow a public agency to actually implement policy effectively.
The project began with only ten employees responsible for managing and overseeing it. Rather than build in-house engineering and rail expertise, the authority was persuaded to shift that enormous responsibility to consultants. Before long, consultants dominated the project, creating the unusual arrangement in which government employees reported to consultants, who then managed other consultants.
Once promoted as a job creator, the project instead funneled emerging work to consultants, contractors, and political insiders, reflecting the influence of interests that had heavily financed the bond initiative behind it.
In previous columns (Bullet -Train Viability, May 28,2026 and Lessons Learned Can Rescue Ca`s HSR, July 17,2025), I detailed these striking examples. One consulting firm employed about 470 people and retained more consultants across Sacramento, Fresno, and San Francisco.
Another firm projected 90 million annual riders, assuming 90 percent of motorists would switch to trains. Those inflated figures drove inflated revenue forecasts. After a UC Riverside professor found serious flaws, the estimate fell to 25 million, a cut astonishingly called minor.
Government projects require government leadership. The project needs a skilled professional who can motivate, influence, negotiate with, and manage experts and consultants. The bullet-train effort must also update agreements with major stakeholders, revise charters with municipal agencies, and clearly identify who is responsible for each primary function.
Supporters called the concept ambitious; I call it malpractice. The state sold a polished vision without an operational plan, and that is where the failure began. The High-Speed Rail Authority may be nominally in charge, but funding depends on the Legislature, land use on local governments, environmental review on CEQA, and federal support on whichever administration is in power. Without a clear chain of command, the project predictably became a custody battle.
Funding was never stable. A one-time bond, unpredictable cap-and-trade revenue, and federal funds that disappeared in 2025 left the project dependent on political conditions. Instead of a disciplined buildout, California adopted a “build what we can afford this year” strategy. That is not planning, it is improvisation.
Right-of-way acquisition became a bureaucratic endurance test and incompetent execution. For example, a general contractor received $42 million by just parking a couple of trailers without performing any work because his contract was signed before land acquisition. In the Central Valley, the state must negotiate with roughly 3,000 parcels one by one, using inconsistent strategies and understaffed teams. Other countries build high-speed rail by centralizing land acquisition; California tried to do it by waiting for landowners to wear down.
CEQA, California’s foundational environmental-review law, was designed to require agencies to study, disclose, and mitigate a project’s environmental impacts. In practice, it often empowers legal challenges more than construction. As a result, each segment became a years-long legal ordeal, with lawsuits delaying procurements and driving up costs.
The high-speed rail project exposed a California governance system that works less like a machine than a labyrinth. Its purpose changed so often that permanency became nearly impossible: first a full Los Angeles–San Francisco line, then a blended system in which high-speed trains would share existing tracks with commuter and freight rail (that negates high speed), then a Central Valley starter line, and finally an interim Merced–Bakersfield service. Electrification, tunnels, and other core elements were pushed into an uncertain future.
To me, a megaproject with an unstable scope cannot have a stable cost or schedule. California can pass visionary ballot measures, produce glossy renderings, and hold press conferences, but under its current governance model, it cannot deliver megaprojects. The problem is not a lack of imagination, engineering talent, or technical difficulty. It is a state government structurally unable to provide unified authority, rapid land acquisition, predictable environmental review, stable funding, long-term political commitment, and disciplined scope management such projects require.
From what I have assiduously studied, and what "60 Minutes" uncovered, none of this was surprising. More than thirty years serving on the boards of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, along with volunteer oversight of several city, county, and state projects, gave me the insider perspective to understand the key elements of successful project delivery.
The "60 Minutes" segment laid bare this system; unless California reforms it, the state’s costliest megaproject will remain stranded in the Central Valley.
Now, the project`s Inspector General, Benjamin Belnap, warns that funding for the initial Merced-to-Bakersfield segment could run out by December 2027-a timeline that would be alarming if the project were not already famous for running out of everything except false optimism. He also identified major transparency failures, including business plan drafts that omitted legally required elements and final versions that still lacked required funding-plan information. He cited procurement failures, including missed deadline, delayed contract awards, and weak conflict of interest safeguards, all of which could jeopardize the timely delivery of key project components.
Another folly being presented is that the "Ghost Train" authority is now pursuing private investors because public funding alone cannot complete the system, especially after the cancellation of federal grants. It has launched efforts meant to attract private capital, expertise, and delivery models. In my view, this amounts to snake -oil sales pitch, and is both unrealistic and unproductive.
California has clearly been burned by this project, suffering political, financial, and reputational damage. The pattern reflects Silicon Valley-style hubris: the belief that bold disruption and sweeping promises can overcome established systems. High-speed rail proponents brought that same startup hype to the California High-Speed Rail Authority, selling a sleek, tech-forward miracle that would leapfrog traditional travel. But real-world megaprojects cannot be patched like software; they must contend with physical terrain, environmental litigation, and eminent-domain disputes.
California high-speed rail stands as one of Gavin Newsom administration’s clearest failures. Let us hope Javier Becerra keeps his campaign promise: “I’m going to scrap the current configuration and make sure we finish—but we have to do it on budget and on time.”
Norway, with fewer residents than Los Angeles County, built the world’s longest road tunnel in five years for $113.1 million. California, by contrast, has spent nearly two decades and almost $18 billion without completing a single mile of high-speed track. One drilled through solid rock on schedule; the other struggles to lay rail across farmland amid delays and rising costs.
My experience shows that project viability depends on rigorously applying lessons learned from projects that were rescued when mired in cost overruns and time delays. California’s high-speed rail can still be salvaged, but only if the state makes major structural reforms. Without them, the project will continue sliding toward slow-motion failure.
With meaningful reform, it can still become the fast, reliable link between California’s major regions that many envision promotes economic growth, reduces air pollution, expands opportunity, and complements local and regional rail.
(Nick Patsaouras is an electrical engineer, civic leader, and a longtime public advocate. He ran for Mayor in 1993 with a focus on rebuilding L.A. through transportation after the 1992 civil unrest. He has served on major public boards, including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Metro, and the Board of Zoning Appeals, helping guide infrastructure and planning policy in Los Angeles. He is the author of the book "The Making of Modern Los Angeles.")
