No One Wants To Invest in CA HSR!

The California High-Speed Rail Authority put out a Request for Expressions of Interest in building, operating and financing the HSR project. The FAQ provides cost estimates and assumes Cap and Trade revenues of $500 million per year through 2050. CHSRA’s list of responders. The 36 replies that came back said, in effect, “No thank you. We will need a guarantee of revenue before we will be willing to do that.” See the Los Angeles Times coverage. Note that CHSRA Chair Dan Richard stated “

Because an operating subsidy is prohibited by Proposition 1A, that means that the proposed HSR system cannot be built. It also means the project should not be in construction now, because there is no way enough sections can be funded for there to be a viable system. For a discussion of the issue of adequate capital to construct the project, see
What’s Wrong?