An Op-Ed in the San Jose Mercury News got rather pointed:

The latest end-run tactic by the train’s chief engineer, Gov.
Jerry Brown, would have California’s Legislature suspend its
tough environmental laws so the state could put this pet
project on the — pardon the pun — fast track.

Never mind that every independent analysis has been highly
critical of it.

Never mind that the High-Speed Rail Authority’s own peer
review group said it was terribly flawed.

Never mind that the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office
said even the new, new, new and improved incarnation still is
not nearly “strong enough” and relies on “highly speculative”
funding sources. That is bureaucratese for “not a snowball’s
chance in hell of finding the money to pay for it.”

Never mind that the state’s projected budget shortfall is now
greater than the total budget of 39 states and that the debt
service on the sale of these rail bonds would create another
fiscal chasm to be filled by another cockamamie budget
gimmick.

Never mind that the new, new, new plan bears so little
resemblance to the one voters approved that going ahead with
it now borders on ballot fraud.

Never mind that poll after poll — including a USC
Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll released June 2 — has shown
that a strong and growing majority of voters does not want the
state to proceed with the project.

Nope, none of that matters. Casey Jones is at the controls of
his legacy project, so reason and fiscal prudence have been
abandoned on the far side of the turnstile.

We say all this despite having supported high-speed rail when
it was on the ballot in 2008. Rail is important to America’s
future, and we know the first steps toward any visionary plan
face hurdles and may require leaps of faith.

But back then nobody foresaw the economic plunge that still
leaves California mired in budget deficits. We lost faith in
the original board and its planning and construction team.
Then last year, an updated plan with wildly higher costs for a
smaller system sent us leaping to the sidetrack. (Oopsie, did
we say $45 billion? We meant $98 billion. No, no, wait, $68
billion. Well, you know, around there. Did we say San Diego
and Sacramento would be included? Um, our bad, they’re not.)

How can anyone believe a word of what comes from the
High-Speed Rail Authority now?

HT to Ken Orski