加利福尼亚高铁管理局首席执行官Roelof Van Ark及其董事长Thomas Umberg的辞职，预定在建设前几个月开始在中央山谷开始高速轨道建设的第一回合。，将替代运输计划放在了重新审查之下。在Van Ark的20个月任期期间，成本进行了修订。新利18备用官网登录估计增加了一倍以上，达到985亿美元。这笔巨额的金额进一步侵蚀了公众对该项目的支持，并破坏了其资金。

Gov. Jerry Brown (D) compares the project to other great public works that were first mocked but later successfully completed: the Central Valley Water Project, the interstate highway system, Bay Area Rapid Transit and the Panama and Suez canals. "The critics were wrong then and they're wrong now," Brown said in his Jan. 18 state-of-the-state address.

Richard Doty, HNTB vice president and high-speed-rail programs director in the transportation engineering consultant's Oakland office, supports Brown's vision. "I've worked on high-speed-rail projects in Korea and in Europe, and I give the governor credit for proposing to solve a problem with a system that the rest of the world found to be a good solution." He adds, "The cost of entry is high, but we can remember that the airlines don't pay for airports and the bus lines don't pay for roads. Governments pay for the infrastructure."

Susan Handy, professor of environmental science and director of the sustainable transportation center at the University of California, Davis, thinks the alternatives to rail are not attractive, but she is concerned about the effect on the state's land use and farming. She says, "It has the potential to contribute to further sprawl in the Central Valley, with potential increased pressure on prime agricultural lands."