SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – After years of prep work, Gov. Jerry Brown’s finance department decided Friday that California’s $64 billion high-speed rail project is ready to lay some track.
The administration approved the rail authority’s request to spend $2.6 billion on work in the Central Valley. The decision lets the authority ask the state treasurer’s office to sell a portion of the nearly $10 billion in bonds voters approved in 2008 for a bullet train.
However, the first 29-mile segment of track isn’t expected to be completed until at least August 2019.
The bullet train’s long-term prospects remain clouded because of uncertainty over funding and several pending lawsuits. Significant federal help is required, and the Republican-controlled Congress does not support the project. Private money also is needed but none has been secured yet.
The treasurer previously issued $1.15 billion of the bonds that went for administration and on work to connect the new system to existing tracks, leaving the bulk of the money unspent.