High-Speed Rail Isn't Getting the Nearly $1 Billion It Asked For

It could have been a spell of stimulus exuberance when the California High-Speed Rail Authority filed a $958 million funding request with the state. California's cash pile being in the state that it is, number crunchers were not amused, and said the authority would need be start accounting for all that money they're asking for. So they've dropped their request to about half as much, at $458 million — still more than three times their current budget of $139 million. Part of the funding request was for 27 more employees, as the group says it's hurting for more staff in order to move the project forward before federal deadlines threaten to chop away at free money. But a huge bulk of it — $750 million! — had been proposed for property acquisitions between San Francisco and L.A. The amount that state analysts ended up agreeing on, $250 mil, means a smaller war chest ultimately for razing projects like the Watermark, if such a thing should ever come to pass.
· State analysts question huge high-speed rail funding request [Merc/SMCT]
· Train Lovers Fed Up With Beale Street Shenanigans, Start Petition [Curbed SF]