Billions and billions for train project

Supporters of a taxpayer-subsidized high speed rail line between Las Vegas and Southern California may want to pay attention to what's going on with plans for a bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Keep in mind that California is virtually broke. But that didn't stop voters in 2008 from approving a $10 billion bond issue to begin construction of a $34 billion high-speed rail line between the Bay Area and Southern California. Obama administration "stimulus" money is also involved.

Critics pointed out that cost estimates for such projects -- along with ridership projections -- are notoriously unreliable. "Hard evidence illustrates how much a high-speed rail system's estimated costs can go askew," wrote former World Bank executive William Grindley, Stanford University management professor Alain Enthoven and Silicon Valley financier William Warren in a paper circulated by opponents of the plan.

Unfortunately, political empire building too often trumps fiscal reality.

In fact, the men correctly predicted the future. On Tuesday, a business plan for the proposed bullet train reset the proposed cost at almost $100 billion and pushed back the completion date from 2020 to 2033.

The Los Angeles Times notes it's unclear how the state will pay for all this. Indeed, if the state moves forward -- the first leg is supposed to connect Fresno and Bakersfield, a certain attraction -- will anyone bet against the estimates climbing even higher in years to come?

Earlier this year, the U.S. House Budget Committee named this "train to nowhere" -- so dubbed by The Washington Post -- it's most recent recipient of the Budget Boondoggle Award. It's well deserved.

Transportation Weekly summed it up appropriately.

"The strategy appears to be to spend $5.5 billion in order that people in Bakersfield can get to Fresno in 30 minutes by rail instead of two hours by car, at a total cost of about $2,367 per person," the magazine noted, "and that once Fresno-Bakersfield is complete, Congress and California will have no choice but to pay another $75 billion or so to complete Phase I, lest a freestanding Fresno-Bakersfield route go down in history as the palest, hungriest white elephant in the history of transportation construction projects."

How this plays out remains to be seen. But those pushing for a similar project connecting Las Vegas with Southern California had better be watching carefully.