California high-speed rail price tag more than doubles to $98.5 billion

California’s high speed rail network could cost $98.5 billion to complete — that’s more than double what voters heard three years ago when they approved the project. The California High Speed Rail Authority released the estimate as part of the final business plan at a press conference in Sacramento today.

Initial estimates were made in 2008; the new estimates have been adjusted for inflation. Completion of the high-speed rail system, which will run from San Francisco to Anaheim, has been pushed to 2033.

Reason Foundation Vice President of Policy Adrian Moore co-authored a 2008 study that predicted the rail’s massive increase in price. After looking at the construction and utilization of high-speed rail systems around the world, researchers suggested the cost to be upwards of $80 billion.

“At that time, what the High-Speed Rail Authority plan was saying was that California was planning to build by far the most efficient high-speed rail system ever in the world, the cheapest high-speed rail system ever in the world and by far the highest ridership ever in the world," Moore told KPCC's Larry Mantle on Tuesday's "AirTalk." "And we said, ‘We don’t think any of those three is very likely to happen.’”

Daniel Krause, executive director of grassroots organization Californians for High Speed Rail, said that the projection is unrealistic. “We’re concerned that the skeptics up in the state Legislature have, essentially, browbeaten them into being so conservative that they’re blowing the number up to a much higher level than we were anticipating,” Krause said.

The construction phase could bring about 100,000 jobs to California. The Associated Press reported that a one-way ticket between San Francisco and Los Angeles would average $81 in non-inflation adjusted dollars, with express trains completing the trip in less than three hours. The business plan estimates a net operating profit of $352 million a year, with ridership between 7.4 million to 10.8 million riders by 2025 for an initial southbound phase.

A voter-approved $9 billion state bond cannot be used without matching funds from other sources, but Krause said officials have already obtained between $3.3 billion to $3.5 billion in federal money for construction in the Central Valley, as well as another $400 million for the Transbay terminal in San Francisco. He said the money will be sent back if the project is stalled.

“No money, no jobs being created in the economy if we decided not to move forward," Krause said. "We can’t afford not to move forward right now."

Krause went on to say that the indirect cost to society, relating to health and safety, would lessen substantially. Reason Foundation’s Moore said the state has more pressing issues to prioritize.

“Right now the state is cutting things in budget that are hurting people directly. Do we want to spend $100 billion on a train that, the success which is at best highly questionable, when we don’t have the money right now to do the things that most people consider are fundamental?” he said. “All of these benefits from high-speed rail only happen if the project really happens — that the whole thing is built. And given that we have $6 billion out of 100 I’m not sure that’s going to happen.”

KPCC's Andrea Wang, Steve Proffitt, Larry Mantle and Madeleine Brand contributed to this story.