Organized labor has provided crucial support for the high-speed rail project, discouraging any straying from California's current plan.
bodies in yellow hardhats and orange vests have been hard to miss in the audience over the years at California bullet train board meetings, legislative hearings and other key events.
The project is short some $80 billion, according to current estimates, and is so far behind schedule that no one can even say with much confidence if it will ever be finished. Management turmoil and problems in securing land for the rail line have turned the project into a case study of a flawed mega-project.Hunter is now among those pushing the Legislature to release the remaining $4.2 billion of the $9 billion that voters approved in 2008 for high-speed rail.
In the next month, Hunter’s political power, along with the clout of Carpenters, Teamsters and others, will be put to the test as the state and federal government begin doling out transportation dollars. “If anything, there are more people critical of the program now than in the past,” Rendon said in an interview.The financial path forward is full of crooked tracks. Even as President Biden unveiled his then $2-trillion federal investment in transportation and infrastructure in late March, he made no mention of California’s bullet train.
Brian Kelly, chief executive of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said he counts on Hunter’s political support, adding that union jobs in the economically distressed Central Valley are important. “It is about survival,” he said.
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