CA high-speed rail cost balloons, report due May 1

(The Center Square) – A business plan is due soon for California’s High-Speed Rail Authority detailing funding gaps and explaining its plans to find the money. Assembly Bill 377, which was passed and signed into law in 2025, requires the agency that operates the state’s as-yet unbuilt high-speed rail to include funding information, including financial gaps in the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment, to the Legislature in the agency’s annual business plan. Under the bill, the business plan has to include details such as an estimate of the gap in funding and a strategy to fix it. Ahead of the report required by May 1, the agency released a draft business plan that shows a commitment of $1 billion a year through 2045 from the state’s cap-and-trade program, also known as cap-and-invest. According to the most recent cost estimates from that report, the San Francisco-to-Bakersfield segment is projected to cost $60.34 billion. The San Francisco-to-Palmdale segment wo