Newsom’s freight train going nowhere – Latest News
Gavin Newsom delivered a traditional “self-own” this week when he posted a video on social media touting progress on high-speed rail — whereas standing in entrance of a stationary freight train.
It was an image that completely captured Newsom’s file on the bullet train: all speak, no movement.
A press release from Newsom’s workplace boasted that “track installation [is] now within reach.” It was a reminder that after more than seven years, Newsom has not really laid monitor, besides on the railhead.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is offered with a framed golden-plated rail fastening clips during a information convention on the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s 150-acre Southern Railhead web site in Wasco, Calif. AP
We’re little nearer to high-speed rail than when Jerry Brown signed a symbolic rail more than a decade in the past.
Newsom’s announcement appeared crafted for his future presidential marketing campaign, addressing anticipated assaults on his file.
Sure, he didn’t really construct the train, however he introduced it “within reach.” OK, he didn’t really construct the Sites Reservoir, however he moved it by the allowing course of. Fine, he didn’t really decrease homelessness, however he introduced it down from the place it was earlier in his time period.
The irony is that Newsom as soon as noticed high-speed rail for the boondoggle it had develop into.
In his very first handle to the state legislature as governor, in 2019, he canceled the San Francisco-to-LA plan for the train, saying “it would cost too much and, respectfully, would take too long.”
But he stored the rural portion of the project, for unexplained causes.
Bakersfield and Merced are great locations within the lovely Central Valley, however they’re already linked by highway, and even by rail — on Amtrak’s “Gold Runner” line.
The high-speed rail project has develop into a national joke. Its price continues to soar, its delays grow ever longer, and even whether it is constructed, it should by no means have the ability to survive with out authorities subsidies.
It’s a image of state failure in California, the place utopian goals typically crash in opposition to sensible and financial actuality.
High-speed rail would possibly but succeed — the place non-public capital sees potential for revenue, such because the Brightline West journey from SoCal to Vegas.
But Newsom ought to have ended the state-backed bullet train when he had the prospect.
He may even have bragged about his capacity to stop bullets.
