A bad sign for infrastructure spending.
Trump’s newly appointed transportation secretary, Elaine Chao has slammed the brakes on a $2 billion project to upgrade the Caltrain line from San Jose to San Francisco.
Last Friday, Chao halted the $647 million federal grant that helps cover the project until an audit can be completed. Caltrain has already selected contractors to get started on construction by March 1. If they aren’t able to get started by that date, the bidding process will begin all over again and likely at a much higher cost.
There’s little chance Caltrain can meet its deadline now that an audit is required, and the cost penalties could be “so severe that we might not be able to do the project,” Seamus Murphy, the rail system’s chief communications officer, told the Los Angeles Times.
Caltrain officials are asking Trump to intervene and direct the FTA to fund the electrification process of the existing Caltrain system. They say the project would create 9,600 jobs.