Gavin Newsom delivered a classic “self-own” this week when he posted a video on social media touting progress on high-speed rail — while standing in front of a stationary freight train.
It was an image that perfectly captured Newsom’s record on the bullet train: all talk, no motion.
A press release from Newsom’s office boasted that “track installation [is] now within reach.” It was a reminder that after more than seven years, Newsom has not actually laid track, except at the railhead.
We’re little closer to high-speed rail than when Jerry Brown signed a symbolic rail more than a decade ago.
Newsom’s announcement seemed crafted for his future presidential campaign, addressing anticipated attacks on his record.
Sure, he didn’t actually build the train, but he brought it “within reach.” OK, he didn’t actually build the Sites Reservoir, but he moved it through the permitting process. Fine, he didn’t actually lower homelessness, but he brought it down from where it was earlier in his term.
The irony is that Newsom once saw high-speed rail for the boondoggle it had become.
In his very first address 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 kept the rural portion of the project, for unexplained reasons.
Bakersfield and Merced are wonderful places in the beautiful Central Valley, but they’re already linked by road, and even by rail — on Amtrak’s “Gold Runner” line.
The high-speed rail project has become a national joke. Its cost continues to soar, its delays grow ever longer, and even if it is built, it will never be able to survive without government subsidies.
It’s a symbol of state failure in California, where utopian dreams often crash against practical and financial reality.
High-speed rail might yet succeed — where private capital sees potential for profit, such as the Brightline West ride from SoCal to Vegas.
But Newsom should have ended the state-backed bullet train when he had the chance.
He could even have bragged about his ability to stop bullets.
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