One core piece of the Legislative Analyst’s Office’s attack on HSR was their suggestion that California follow the lead of Scott Walker and Chris Christie and demand that we be allowed to use federal rail funds for other purposes, including delaying their expenditure. I predicted that the feds would not go along with this, and that the LAO would have known this if anyone on their staff actually had a clue about HSR.

Today we learn that I was right and the LAO was wrong:

Federal officials say that a 2012 deadline to start construction of a multibillion-dollar high-speed rail system in California is firm and can’t be postponed.

The U.S. Transportation Department said in a letter Wednesday to the California High-Speed Rail Authority that regulators have no authority to change the deadline. The department also says it won’t allow the state to move the first stretch of track from the Central Valley to a coastal city.

The LAO ought to toss out their report and start from scratch, this time with people who actually know a thing or two about HSR, interview people who have worked on HSR, gather stats from other countries (and from the Acela) on HSR, assess the benefits of HSR as well as the costs of not building HSR, and produce a report that actually provides some informed discussion and recommendations that are based in reality and respect what the people of California voted to do.

The report has made the LAO look foolish and uninformed. For the sake of their own credibility, they would be wise to start over. California deserves a well-informed assessment of the HSR project, not an uninformed hit job that is so easily dismissed.