$15 Billion Later And Zero TracksCalifornia's High-Speed Rail Paid Consultants For Perks Instead

As reported by RedState, the project, championed by Governor Gavin Newsom and his Democratic predecessors, has become a monument to bureaucratic excess and political vanity rather than a functioning transportation system. Now, a new audit reveals that a portion of that staggering sum has not even gone toward laying track or building stations, but toward lavish and often personal travel expenses for consultants tied to the project.

Californias inspector general for the High Speed Rail Agency released a report Tuesday detailing how more than $680,000 in questionable travel costs were reimbursed to outside consultants. According to the audit, the agency paid roughly $2 million in travel expenses to four consulting firmscovering financial, legal, and track design serviceswhile approving a host of charges that had little apparent connection to the public interest.

September 16, 2026

Californias beleaguered high-speed rail project paid more than $680,000 in dubious travel expenses to consultants connected to the project including premium plane tickets and rideshare trips to gyms, nightclubs and an escape room, according to a damning new audit. The report, obtained by The California Post, found that consultants billed the state for premium flight upgrades, prohibited international travel and rideshare trips to gyms, restaurants, a cigar lounge and more.

The details read less like the ledger of a public works project and more like the expense account of a corporate junket. One entry cited by auditors shows a nearly $40 Uber Black luxury car charge for a trip of less than 1 mile in downtown Sacramento, a distance easily walkable in the state capitals mild climate.

Other charges were even harder to justify as legitimate business costs. The audit flagged premium Uber and Lyft rides to and from a restaurant, bar and nightclub between 9:40 p.m. and 2:30 a.m. that clearly appear to be for personal enjoyment rather than for the benefit of the state. Numerous meals in Folsomwhere CEO Choudri maintains a homewere also reimbursed, raising obvious questions about whether taxpayers were subsidizing personal living expenses.

The report further documented repeated reimbursed ride-hailing trips to Planet Fitness gyms in and around Sacramento, even after a supervisor wrote that the state does not cover ride share[s] to gyms. Perhaps most brazen of all, auditors found $118,000 in international travel despite the contracts explicitly barring international travel, suggesting that even clear contractual limits were treated as optional.

Maybe some of that international travel was to Morocco, to see how that little Third World dictatorship is wiping California's eye in the world of passenger rail construction? the original commentary quipped, underscoring the embarrassment of a wealthy American state being outpaced by far poorer nations. While other countries manage to build modern rail systems on tighter budgets and shorter timelines, Californias effort remains stuck in political quicksand and fiscal mismanagement.

The political responsibility for this fiasco is bipartisan in origin but overwhelmingly Democratic in execution. Now, full disclosure: When this ballot initiative passed, California's governor was Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Democrat Jerry Brown made high-speed rail a priority in his fourth term. Governor Newsom has also talked up this failing project, and now it's his name that's on the blame line, and as critics note, there's a long list of things for which his name is on that blame line.

From a good-governance standpoint, the revelations in the audit demand more than a sternly worded memo. This is a case where, in a sane world, these consultants would be dragged in front of the state legislature and made to answer some very pointed questions about these expenses. The pattern of behavioran Uber Black trip of less than a mile, late-night bar and nightclub runs, rideshare trips to gyms which were expressly forbidden, and international travel in defiance of contract termsgoes well beyond sloppy bookkeeping.

This is fraud. California's taxpayers are getting ripped off, and that's all there is to it. For conservatives who have long warned that massive, centrally planned projects become playgrounds for special interests and unaccountable bureaucrats, the high-speed rail saga is a case study in what happens when progressive ambitions collide with fiscal reality.

Its past time the high-speed rail project was abandoned, and the state should recover what it can from this debacle and call it a lesson learned: Never let Democrats oversee a major infrastructure project. Californians voted for a modern rail system, not a taxpayer-funded lifestyle upgrade for consultants, and the latest audit only reinforces the sense that the states political leadership has treated public money with cavalier disregard rather than sober stewardship.