Californians narrowly approved about $10 billion for a high-speed rail system between the Bay Area and Southern California in 2008. It’s been 15 years since the vote.

Here’s a look at the latest cost and time estimates for the completion of California’s high-speed rail.

In 2015, construction began on a viaduct in Madera County, the first visible sign of the high-speed rail project. The cost estimate was about $68 billion for the project then. The 119-mile Central Valley segment (Merced to Bakersfield) is still under construction and not expected to have passenger service until between 2030 and 2033.

The state requires the High-Speed Rail Authority to prepare a project update every odd year and in its 2023 report, it said that, “the biggest risk we face is full funding – over which we have very little control.”

The original goal of the project was to go from San Francisco to Anaheim, with another phase connecting Sacramento and San Diego. In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in his State of the State address that the length of the high-speed rail line under construction in the Central Valley will be shorter, instead between Madera and Bakersfield.

Phase 1 of the project consists of multiple segments. The first is the Central Valley segment, which is 119 miles. The second segment extends north to Merced. The third segment would be extending it to San Francisco and then to Anaheim on what will be called the Valley-to-Valley segment.

In 2023, 171 miles are environmentally cleared and 119 miles are under construction, with 52 miles in advanced design.  The HSR Authority has environmentally cleared 422 miles of the Phase 1 section. Here’s a look at the progress and the Legislative Analyst’s Office assessment for 2023:

In 2015, construction began on the 119-mile Central Valley segment (Madera to Bakersfield). Testing of trains on the line isn’t expected until 2028.

Is there funding?

The Legislative Analyst’s Office shows that between federal funds and state funds, $23.5 billion to $25.2 billion is available for the project. The expected cost of Merced to Bakersfield is $35.3 billion.

The project is trying to attain an additional $8 billion in federal money.

Ridership estimates

The LAO’s 2023 report revised the high-speed rail ridership estimate for the first time since 2020. It now estimates the Valley-to-Valley (San Francisco to Anaheim) segment will have a ridership of 11.5 million annual passengers by 2040, down 39% from the previous estimate of 18.4 million passengers per year.

The 2023 HSRA report projects the full 500-mile system will have 31.3 million riders a year by 2040.

If the high-speed rail system averaged 11.5 million people a year paying $86 for a ticket, it would take this many years to break even:

11.5 million people a year is an average of about 31,000 per day. The Pacific Surfliner trains averaged about 7,300 people per day before the pandemic.

It would take more than 1.25 billion people paying that $86 a ticket for the estimated $107.6 billion high-speed rail system to break even. That is the equivalent of 32 times the population of California in 2023.

In the news

On Monday, a bipartisan congressional group from Nevada and California asked the Biden administration to fast-track federal funds for a private company to build a 218-mile high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga.

All six of Nevada’s elected federal lawmakers and four House members from California sent the letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. They said they’re on board with a proposal from Brightline West to spend more than $10 billion to lay tracks along the Interstate 15 corridor.

A draft environmental assessment of the Nevada-California project was made public in October and the Federal Railroad Administration is expected to finalize permits in July. The company said about 70% of funding will be private, using a combination of debt and equity.

Amtrak passenger service to Las Vegas ended in 1997 with the demise of a train called the Desert Wind. The concept of building a bullet train through the Mojave Desert dates back to at least 2005 under various names. It has seen starts and stops over the years and became sidetracked during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sources: California High-Speed Rail Authority, The Legislative Analyst’s Office, International Union of Railways, National Transportation and Safety Administration, U.S. High-Speed Rail Association, American Public Transportation Association, The Associated Press