This African country has high-speed rail before – Latest News
Gavin Newsom likes to boast that California has the world’s fourth-largest financial system. So why can’t it construct high-speed rail, whereas Morocco — which ranks 57th — has had it for years?
“The California High-Speed Rail Authority recently awarded its first track and systems contract and will begin laying track later this year,” boasts a June 24 electronic mail from US High Speed Rail. “Trains are planned to be operating between Merced and Bakersfield by 2032-2033.”
This contract, to Momentum Alliance Partners, marks “a major turning point in California’s high speed rail project.”
Californians are nicely conscious of what the e-mail doesn’t clarify.
The whole value of California’s vaunted “bullet train” has surged from the unique $33 billion in 2008, when voters permitted Proposition 1A, to a staggering $231 billion, all before any monitor was laid. According to UCLA economist Lee Ohanian, the project was a fantasy from the beginning, however remained a favourite of recurring governor Jerry Brown.
“We’ve got the money. We’re a rich state,” Brown proclaimed in May 2025. “We got $4 trillion in gross domestic product. Spain has less domestic product. They got one. France has a lower domestic product. They’ve got one.” As Californians ought to know, so does Morocco, a nation with a GDP of $194 billion.
Launched in 2018, the Al Boraq Line, is the primary high-speed rail system on the African continent. At 200 mph, the trains cut journey time from Casablanca to Tangier from 4 hours and 45 minutes to simply two hours and 10 minutes.
“For a foreigner, fares are cheap,” notes journey author Phillip Mallis. So Morocco must be “a place on the list to visit for rail fans.” The initial stretch value roughly $2-4 billion, and a main growth is within the works.
Sign up for the California Morning Report publication
California’s high information, sports activities and leisure delivered to your inbox on daily basis.
Thanks for signing up!
The $10.3 billion plan will embrace a line to Marrakesh and goal for completion before the 2030 World Cup soccer event, to be collectively hosted by Morocco, Spain and Portugal. At an estimated 217 mph, the trains will take solely 35 minutes to achieve Casablanca from Rabat, and Casablanca to Tangier will take just one hour and 40 minutes.
Morocco collaborated intently with France on the project. The trains meet all European requirements and future routes might join Morocco with Spain and Paris.
California’s bullet prepare aimed to attach Los Angeles and San Francisco, however even when accomplished as deliberate the prepare would have been slower and more costly than air journey. Merced to Bakersfield is just not a high-travel route for Californians or international vacationers. The monitor, slated for 2032-34, has but to be constructed and the bullet prepare has but to hold a single passenger.
An African country within the so-called developing world simply outstrips the allegedly “rich state” of California. After almost 20 years, the so-called Golden State is all discuss and no monitor. For Ohanian, California’s high-speed rail might be one of the greatest public coverage failures in state historical past, however there’s one other contender.
Morocco collaborated with France and different European nations that had already skilled in high-speed trains. For the new span of the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Oakland, California employed China’s state-owned Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries (ZPMC), which on the time had by no means constructed a single bridge.
The project got here in 10 years late, $5 billion over funds, and riddled with questions of safety similar to defective welds, damaged bolts and corroded rods. When Gov. Brown bought phrase of the problems he mentioned, “I mean, look, sh– happens.” Nothing like that from Brown or Gov. Newsom on the prepare that goes nowhere and carries no person.
California would do higher to stop the rail project and use the money to construct new roads, repair the potholes and add a third lane to Interstate 5 within the Central Valley.
Lloyd Billingsley is a coverage fellow on the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.
Download The California Post App, observe us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters
California Post News: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, LinkedIn
California Post Sports Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X
California Post Opinion
California Post Newsletters: Sign up right here!
California Post App: Download right here!
Home supply: Sign up right here!
Page Six Hollywood: Sign up right here!
