How California's High-Speed Train Project Derailed

Last week, California's struggling and massively over budget high-speed rail network suffered a major setback. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles by bullet trains would be scaled back considerably amid soaring costs. The 171 miles of track running from Merced to Bakersfield will be prioritized with hopes high that it will open by 2027 while the the dream of connecting the Bay Area is being shelved for now.

The following infographic shows how the golden state's dream project was derailed. Back in 2000, it was expected that the entire network would cost around $25 billion but things quickly spun out of control. By 2012, planners were looking at a total bill of $68.4 billion and last year that grew even further to $77.3 billion. It was thought that the total cost could even grow as high as $98 billion.

After 16 states filed lawsuits against Trump after he declared a national emergency, the president took aim at California and the train project in particular. He tweeted that "the failed fast train project" was beset by "word record setting" cost overruns and had become "hundreds of times more expensive than the desperately needed Wall!"