In 2008, California voters approved funding for a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
asserted
voters → approve → Francisco
A group of contractors donated tens of thousands of dollars to support the ballot measure.
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group → donate → measure
A state program manager projected that the initiative would create more than 100,000 construction jobs.
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initiative → project → jobs
Eighteen years and more than $15 billion later, not a single mile of high-speed track has been laid.
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mile → lay → track
The state hasn’t even laid track on the rump Merced-Bakersfield line that it wants to open in the 2030s.
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it → lay → 2030s
In a recently resurfaced video from his time as lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom said the full project was unlikely to “materialize in our lifetime.”
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project → resurface → lifetime
The bullet train, like almost every effort to build things in California, was killed by environmental regulations.
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train → build → regulations
The state’s high-speed-rail website contains more than 130,000 pages of environmental-review-related materials.
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website → contain → materials
Stacked together, they stand 40 feet tall and weigh 1,300 pounds.
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they → stack → pounds
All this has cost taxpayers more than $677 million and served as a meal ticket for consulting firms that backed the 2008 ballot measure.
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that → cost → measure
California law typically requires an entity to perform an environmental review when its building project requires a state permit.
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project → require → permit
In practice, that applies to many major efforts in California.
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that → apply → California
These reports create delays, new expenses, and burdensome requirements, some of which have nothing to do with meaningful environmental protection.
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some → create → protection
We wanted to find out how much environmental paperwork the bullet-train project has generated.
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project → want → paperwork
To do that, we had multiple AI systems scan the reams of reports linked on the California High Speed Rail Authority’s website, and asked them to catalog the files, establish each one’s page-count, and sum those numbers.
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systems → do → numbers
Both systems tallied more than 130,000 pages.
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systems → tally → pages
To verify the results, we reviewed one of the AI systems’ spreadsheets, which included each document’s web link, title, and page count.
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which → verify → link
Remarkably, across more than 27,000 pages of cross-referenced files, the AI system didn’t make a single page-count error.
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system → reference → error
A California High Speed Rail Authority spokesperson told us that the authority “does not maintain a running page count of all environmental documents,” but did not deny the 130,000-page figure.
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authority → tell → figure
Some of the bullet-train reports include ridiculous measures.
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Some → include → measures
One proposed that biologists count bumblebees, one by one.
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biologists → propose → one
Another outlined when a contractor was allowed to break down woodrat stick huts.
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contractor → outline → huts
Still others contemplated using dogs to sniff for lizard scat or spending $119.4 million on an overhead tube partly to limit the train’s “acoustic impacts on waterfowl and shorebirds.”
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others → contemplate → waterfowl
Such measures have prompted a flurry of expensive change orders.
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measures → prompt → orders
Contractors have requested $480,000 “to dig small burrows for mammals by hand”; $352,490 for lizard surveys and reports; and $290,000 to implement the state’s environmental-requirements-tracking software.
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Contractors → request → software
In one case, California’s high-speed rail agency revised its draft environmental report after the state proposed a regional mountain lion as a candidate for protected status.
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state → revise → status
Environmental reviews are one reason that costs continue to spiral.
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costs → continue → ?
A November 2018 state audit, for example, found that a contractor received a $3 million amendment from the rail authority.
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contractor → find → authority
The authority, however, could not demonstrate that it had independently verified the contractor’s claims.
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it → demonstrate → claims
Instead, it had lifted part of its report “directly from the contractor’s amendment request.”
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it → lift → request
In June 2018, the authority unanimously approved amendments worth more than $142 million.
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authority → approve → amendments
Who benefits from all this?
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Who → benefit → this
The scheme is straightforward: The contractors back the bullet-train boondoggle and shuffle money to politicians, and California directs millions of dollars to the firms to perform endless environmental reviews.
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California → back → reviews
It’s a massive gravy train.
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It → ’ → ?
Three contractors, HNTB, AECOM Tech, and Parsons Brinckerhoff (later acquired by WSP), were among the biggest donors to a committee supporting the 2008 bullet train ballot measure.
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contractors → acquire → measure
They donated $63,000, $75,000, and $76,500, respectively.
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They → donate → 63,000
The firms have also sent wads of cash to California Democrats and their pet causes.
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firms → send → Democrats
Newsom’s gubernatorial campaigns received $5,000 from AECOM’s PAC, $18,500 from WSP, and $26,000 from HNTB’s PAC.
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campaigns → receive → PAC
Govs. Jerry Brown and Newsom solicited payments worth $55,000 and $75,000, respectively, from AECOM for charitable purposes.
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Brown → solicit → purposes
HNTB’s PAC donated to California rail advocate Scott Wiener’s campaign.
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PAC → donate → campaign
…and 8 more, not listed.
The Aporia
