Ten thousand years from now, future archaeologists will be allowed back into the wasteland that was once known as California.
They will find many wonderous things but what they come across in Central Valley will astonish them – mile after mile after mile of concrete pillars, crumbling decks, arched bridges seemingly connecting nowhere to nothing and straight line after straight line.
Some will state that it must have been an attempt to create an alien spaceport, others will note that the various segments point to different constellations in the night sky and posit that it was an effort to tap into the great universal presence.
Digging will uncover broken fragments of bronze plaques, leading one archaeologist to insist that all of the structures need to be looked at as one monument, a vast linear temple to the god Hi-Spe.
Then another will neuralink into the tattered and tawdry remains of what is now called the internet and, after months of searching, find the California High Speed Rail Authority’s 2008 Business Plan read it and say:
“Are you kidding me? Really? No wonder the civilization collapsed.”
Wednesday, the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office drove the 48th final nail into the coffin of the project, stating categorically that if the project cannot find another $7 billion dollars by next June it completely and utterly grinds to a halt.
“There is no specific plan to meet that roughly $7 billion gap, we also think there is some risk that gap could grow,” Helen Kerstein of the LAO told legislatures Wednesday. “This isn’t a way out in the future funding gap. This is a pretty immediate funding gap.”
She added that the project “could come to a complete halt in 15 months without the funding increase.”
The latest news even shocked some Sacramento Democrats. Well, not shocked (they already know) but at least caused them to actually criticize the project.
“The timing of the project review seems totally out of whack with when we need to be making decisions,” said Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris (D–Irvine.) “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.”
The rail Authority – which was supposed to present a fully updated business plan to the legislature but hasn’t yet - has exactly zero practical suggestions as to how to to find the money, saying under its breath that maybe the state (which already has a $76 billion deficit this fiscal year) should help or that maybe it could get some federal funding (actually, the feds are looking for ways to get their $4 billion back) or that private funding will finally – after 17 years of beating the corporate bushes to find anyone to invest and failing – come to fruition.
Read the rest of this piece at The Point.
Thomas Buckley is the former Mayor of Lake Elsinore and a former newspaper reporter. He is currently the operator of a small communications and planning consultancy and can be reached directly at planbuckley@gmail.com. You can read more of his work at thomas699.substack.com.
Photo: courtesy The Point.
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