Fact Check: Has California Spent $11 Billion on High-Speed Rail Stretch?

[Tin tức]

Rumors appeared online this week that $11 billion had been used just to construct a 1,600-foot-long section of track.

By Tom Norton


California's high-speed rail development, currently projected to cost $135 billion, is set to connect the state's major cities with trains traveling up to 220 mph.

The first stretch of the project, which has been in the works since 2008, is due to be completed by 2030, connecting passengers from Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours.

However, the cost and complexity of the project have attracted attention, with the budget ballooning from early estimates, leading to fiscal concerns and discussion about its viability.



A post on X, formerly Twitter, by Dogecoin creator Billy Markus, posted on May 3, 2024, viewed 1.2 million times, said that $11 billion had been spent constructing "1600 feet of high speed rail."

The post referred to an announcement from California High Speed Rail that it had completed The Fresno River Viaduct in Madera County, "one of the first completed high speed rail structures."

User @billyM2k wrote that "this is the most remarkable human achievement ever, 1600 feet of high speed rail after 9 years and 11 billion dollars.

"it takes about 5 minutes to walk 1600 feet so a high speed rail for that is a really big deal

"california is so competent."

The $11 billion figure appears to refer to the recorded program expenditure from July 2006 to June 2023, as stated in documentation by the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CaHSRA).

"From July 2006 through June 2023, the California High-Speed Rail Authority
invested about $11.2 billion in planning and constructing the nation's
first high-speed rail system," the release stated.

Construction of the viaduct started in 2015 and was completed in 2018, per other publicly available CaHSRA resources. It is among 45 other projects listed as complete by the authority.

As provided to Fact Checkers at USA Today, a CaHSRA spokesman said that invoices for the group of construction, of which Fresno viaduct is part, came to just over $2 billion, which matches other published contract costs.

While there may be accusations that the cost of the High Speed Rail contract is inflating, the claim that this one section of bridge cost $11 billion to build is incorrect.

Newsweek has contacted media representatives for the California High-Speed Rail Authority for comment.

The Ruling

False.

The Fresno River Viaduct, part of the California High-Speed Rail Authority project, did not cost $11 billion to construct. That cost is part of the total investment from 2006 to 2023, as stated by the authority. The bridge is part of a package of construction invoiced at about $2 billion. It is one of dozens of projects that have been completed so far.

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