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Newsom, though, said he wants to finish construction that's already underway on a segment of the high-speed train through California's Central Valley, arguing it will revitalize the economically depressed region.
https://abc7news.com/politics/gov-newsom-ending-high-speed-rail-project-between-sf-la/5134644/
But, he reiterated, that does not mean it is time to end it. To those critics who say California should stop building it, he said, “Abandoning high-speed rail entirely means we will have wasted billions of dollars with nothing but broken promises and lawsuits to show for it.”
“And by the way,” he added, “I am not interested in sending $3.5 billion in federal funding back to Donald Trump. Because that’s what it would take.”
https://cal.streetsblog.org/2019/02/12/newsom-says-high-speed-rail-serving-the-central-valley-is-not-a-train-to-nowhere/comment-page-1/
Even though there is currently no clear path for high-speed rail to connect Sacramento and San Diego, “let alone from San Francisco to L.A.,” he said. “We do have the capacity to complete a high-speed rail link between Merced and Bakersfield.”
Several news outlets have already interpreted his remarks to mean he wants to scale the project back to just the Central Valley, where construction has already begun and there are clear plans to complete the first segment. But that’s not what he said. He pledged to finish the environmental work on Phase 1 of the program–which would connect San Francisco to Anaheim–and continue to pursue federal funding to complete the entire project.