Edward Ring of the California Policy Institute offers a striking challenge to the financial assumptions in the High-Speed Rail Authority’s 2018 draft Business Plan. He offers a more conservative set of assumptions that result in a negative cash flow for operations out to the year 2059. A project like that simply is not financeable.
While TRANSDEF does not agree with the author’s assumptions about boarding and travel-to-station times, we very much agree that this HSR project will not be affordable for commuting. We are convinced that the promotion of HSR as the solution to the commute woes of Central Valley residents is either intentionally misleading, or the result of a desperate (and unthoughtful) attempt to justify the existence of the project.