California got nearly $7B from feds for high-speed rail — but never laid any track, bombshell report shows By Josh Christenson

“This report exposes a cold, hard truth: CHSRA has no viable path to complete this project on time or on budget,” he said.

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened Wednesday to pull federal grants for California’s High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) after it spent nearly $7 billion in taxpayer funds over a decade and a half without laying a single foot of track...

• Originally passed as a ballot initiative in 2008, the 800-mile rail line was supposed to be completed in two phases on a $33 billion budget by 2020, with a main line connecting San Francisco with Los Angeles and branches stretching north to Sacramento and south to San Diego
• By 2019, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that there was no path forward after costs ballooned to $77.3 billion and the project was drawn down to a 171-mile section between Merced and Bakersfield...