☆ Opinion: Change of administrations should doom San Francisco’s $8 billion rail extension
Depicted: Proposed high-speed rail dubbed the “Portal” project by TJPA
With the incoming Trump administration planning to defund California High-Speed Rail, it’s time for local transit officials to revisit the already weak case for extending HSR and Caltrain from 4th and King Street in San Francisco 1.3 miles to Salesforce Transit Center. Below, an Opp Now exclusive analysis from Contra Costa Taxpayers Association prez Marc Joffe.
Clocking in at an estimated $8.25 billion, the “Portal” project cannot possibly be justified on local ridership alone; and it now appears that those users will not be joined by long-distance passengers for decades, if ever.
Even the California High-Speed Rail Authority had already conceded that there is no funding and hence no projected completion date for the tunnels needed to connect the Central Valley HSR segment now under construction with the Bay Area and the Los Angeles Basin. But with Trump’s victory and the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Authority may not even complete the initial 171 miles of track between Merced and Bakersfield, as it was counting on billions of new federal grants to finish this section.
The chances of any new federal funding between now and at least January 2029 appear virtually nil after DOGE posted a viral tweet about California High-Speed Rail last week.
Completing the full San Francisco to Los Angeles segment will require upwards of $100 billion in yet-to-be-identified funds, which are unlikely to be forthcoming any time soon even if Democrats retake all levers of federal power in the 2028 election. Once in office, a new Democratic Administration and Congress would have to push through an infrastructure bill much larger than the one they passed in 2021 to accommodate not only California’s demands but those of the rest of the country as well. That prospect seems unlikely given current and projected federal deficits.
On the assumption that high-speed rail would be completed, the Portal’s project sponsor, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA), has estimated daily ridership of 48,000 by 2045. This figure, likely derived from an inflated estimate of high-speed rail ridership, would have to be dramatically reduced in the absence of a plan to complete links to the Central Valley and Southern California.
Although Caltrain ridership has grown in the aftermath of its electrification project, it remains well below pre-COVID levels. Average weekday daily ridership of 27,583 in October 2024 is only 44 percent of 2019 passenger boardings. And most Caltrain trips do not include a stop at the San Francisco terminus. In October 2024, only 21 percent of Caltrain passengers boarded at the 4th and King Street station. Assuming they were all starting or completing roundtrips, the San Francisco station handles less than 12,000 trips on the average weekday.
And, if a connection to Salesforce Transit Center was available, only a fraction of passengers now alighting at 4th and King would remain on the train. The existing Caltrain Station is served by two SFMuni lines that connect to various downtown San Francisco destinations, while others might complete their trips on foot, by bike, or, now, by hailing a driverless Waymo.
So, at minimum, the Federal Transit Administration, which had included The Portal in its FY 2025 budget recommendations, should reevaluate the project based on a much lower 2045 ridership estimate. But it may not even get that far since the incoming administration may cut federal funding for the costly project irrespective of the ridership projection. Senator Join Ernst (R-IA) who will be on the Senate’s DOGE Caucus, already inferentially targeted the project in her own viral tweet.
Her tweet calls for the cancellation of three “Crazy California Gravy Trains,” which are high-speed rail, the San Jose BART extension, and the Portal.
Finally, even if for some reason the federal grant was to come through, TJPA is still short of the necessary state and local funds to complete construction. As the accompanying chart from a recent TJPA board presentation shows, $2.666 billion of funding for the Portal remains “planned” but not committed by any governing body.
Rather than continuing to waste money planning and advocating this project, TJPA and its overseers at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission should consider a more realistic option. Cancel the Portal (or pause it indefinitely) and redirect its $910 million in committed funds to support Muni, BART, and Caltrain operations. This move could considerably delay the date on which these agencies go over their respective fiscal cliffs. The state government has previously created openings for agencies to “flex” capital funds into their operating budgets, so this transfer should be possible from a legal standpoint.
Marc Joffe is the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association president and a SHIFT Bay Area board member.
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