Gavin Newsom’s High-Speed Rail photos reveal truth of $15 billion project

Gavin Newsom claims to be a big numbers guy. But the billions he has poured into California’s High-Speed Rail boondoggle just don’t add up.

The California Post has obtained records and photographs from the state’s High-Speed Rail Authority showing where the $15 billion spent over the past decade across five Central Valley counties has gone.

The images of completed segments paint a bleak picture — unless your kink is concrete and desolation.

The 58 so-called “structures” Newsom bragged about during the State of the State speech include 33 grade separations, 13 viaducts, five underpasses, three overpasses, two bridges, two undercrossings and one highway realignment, according to state records.

Some ribbon-cuttings date back nearly a decade. One project — the Tuolumne Street Bridge — was unveiled eight-and-a-half years ago.

And yet, no one is anywhere close to riding a bullet train in California.

Service on the limited stretch between Merced and Bakersfield will not begin until 2032 or 2033, according to the High-Speed Rail Authority, at an estimated total cost of $36.75 billion.

In his final State of the State speech in March, Newsom pointed to the completed structures and nearly 2,300 parcels of land acquisitions as great economic investments.

But even Central Valley lawmakers say they struggle to explain how so much money has produced little more than concrete and rebar across empty farmland.

Road repairs and a gauntlet of underpasses, overpasses and undercrossings make up most of the work, while the Wasco Viaduct has emerged as one of the crown jewels of Newsom’s ambitions.

State Sen. Tony Strickland, a Republican from Huntington Beach and vice chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, called the project a three-card Monte when it was announced.

“And I ended up being right,” he said.

After scrapping plans to connect major endpoints such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, Newsom has argued that critics are talking down to Central Valley communities.

“Newsom knows this project will never be built as it was sold to the people of California,” Strickland said. “And quite frankly, I believe whoever the next governor is will scrap it, because this thing is on life support.”

Officials in the governor’s office declined to comment. High-Speed Rail Authority officials defended the project’s progress.

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“Since its inception, this program has faced unprecedented hurdles, including inconsistent political support, duplicative regulations and chronic underfunding,” officials said. “Despite these constraints, the Authority continues to advance the program. No other true high-speed rail project in North America is under active construction.”

Assemblymember David Tangipa, a Republican from Fresno, said the project makes little sense for the region.

“What are people supposed to do when they take high-speed rail to Wasco — call an Uber?” he said. “There’s no public transportation.”

“This is connecting rural areas to rural areas,” Tangipa added. “That’s why we don’t believe the project will work.”

Despite losing out on $4 billion in disputed federal funding, state officials insist the project has enough capital to continue. Newsom’s most recent budget proposed extending cap-and-invest through 2045 to guarantee at least $1 billion a year.

“Let’s not allow Gaslight Gavin to manipulate reality by rebranding this regulatory nightmare as cap-and-invest,” Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, a Republican from San Diego, told The Post. “Let’s call it what it is — cap-and-spend.”

Few declared candidates for governor have shown any appetite for putting a tourniquet on the spending. Former Fox News host Steve Hilton was the only contender in a debate Tuesday night to say he would abandon the project.

Strickland said federal support will never materialise — except in one scenario.

“Unless Gov. Newsom becomes president, this will never be built.”