Every time we get off on one of these tangents I wish that everyone would just read up on the basics so that we wouldn't keep getting wild numbers from all sides.

Proposition 1A wasn't supposed to pay for the whole thing so the original proposed cost was not $9 billion. For you nit pickers: Remember $950 million was for local projects.

No, we haven't wasted 60, nor 90, nor 99, nor ? billion. Only a few sections are under construction. Don't confuse estimated total cost (with or without Sacramento and San Diego) for the money committed.

Here is a summary. No matter what you think of the source, these are numbers that can't easily be fudged, and why bother? There is enough wiggle room to accommodate a range of opinion.

https://hsr.ca.gov/about/capital-costs-funding/