Article snippet: The plan to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles by high-speed rail “would cost too much and, respectfully, would take too long,” he told legislators. He said the state would still build a portion of the system under construction in the rural Central Valley, denying that it would be a “train to nowhere.” He said the state would not send $3.5 billion back to the federal government to be spent by President Donald Trump. But Newsom said the state could not afford the total cost — even with what he noted was a “record-breaking surplus” in the state’s coffers, thanks to the ongoing economic recovery. He also replaced the chair of the high-speed rail’s governing body, saying there had been too little oversight and transparency. Voters approved the first bond for the “bullet train” under the California High-Speed Rail Authority by referendum in Proposition 1A in 2008. Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, championed the project during his third and fourth terms in office, calling it central to the fight against climate change. Yet over time, the project grew more and more expensive, rising from an initial estimate of $37 billion in 2008 to nearly $100 billion according to an estimate last year. In 2014, Breitbart News revealed that the “high-speed” train would not be so “high-speed” after all, running slower on tracks from San Jose to San Francisco, and from the San Fernando Valley into downtown Los Angeles. The earliest the project might have been completed was in 2033. Still,... Link to the full article to read more