If you're looking for a great example of utter failure on the part of a major infrastructure and transportation project that, thanks to Democrat Party incompetence, has become a complete dog's breakfast, it's hard to find one better than California's attempts to build a high-speed train. The train, which right now goes from nowhere to nowhere because not one rail has been laid, is now a billion-dollar Baby Ruth bar in the swimming pool.
Now, to add massive insult to injury, another high-speed rail project is running right now, and it's everything California said it wanted: Fast, clean, efficient - it even has free wi-fi and a Starbucks on each train. So, where is this fabulously successful high-speed rail that's making the people involved in the California rail project look like incompetent chumps? New York? New Jersey? Dallas? Miami?
Nope. Morocco. Yes, really.
Feasibility studies for a high-speed rail project began in 2006. By 2018, the first section was completed and opened, seven years after construction was started. Where is this bullet train? Not in California. It’s in Morocco.
California voters approved in 2008 a ballot measure for a “safe, convenient, affordable, and reliable alternative to driving and high gas prices” by a 53%-47% margin. Golden Staters were sold a train that would require a $10 billion bond and cost $33 billion to complete. Within a dozen years it would be ripping up and down the state at 220 mph, ferrying passengers between San Diego and Sacramento.
Of course, that hasn't happened. Smart money says it won't. Meanwhile, in Morocco:
Meanwhile, the Al Boraq, Arabic for “the lightning,” is moving passengers across Morocco at nearly 200 mph in a real bullet train. Not only is Morocco’s high-speed rail in service, it is the “the first and only high-speed railway in Africa.” It offers free Wi-Fi, features a Starbucks, a McDonald’s, and “glowing arrivals screens” at its stations.
Just for fun, here's the account of a person who rode on the Morocco railway.
My trek runs the length of the line. I board at Casablanca’s pristine, 10-track station, which has a Starbucks, a McDonald’s, and glowing arrivals screens. I disembark at the terminal in Tangier, a few hundred meters from the mouth of the Mediterranean. The schedule says the train will arrive in 2 hours and 17 minutes. Before Al Boraq first opened service in 2018, the same route took 5 hours.
What's interesting here is the contrasts. Both California and Morocco are, interestingly, of similar population and land area. California, even after a decade or two of ruinous Democrat governance, would still have the world's fourth largest economy, if it came à la carte. That once-Golden State had a lot of ruining in it. But Morocco? The 96th largest economy, and yet, when it comes to building a modern, high-speed rail line, they have wiped California's eye. In fact, Morocco is now, in some quarters, regarded as one of the world's best nations for travel by rail - of course, one is still traveling in Morocco, but at least the train is nice.
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So why has Morocco succeeded where far, far wealthier California failed? Because Morocco forged partnerships with businesses, while California hired "expert consultants" and got mired down in bureaucracy.
Morocco achieved this efficiency through partnership. In 2009, Morocco’s ONCF called in France’s national railway, SNCF, and the engineering giant Alstom. Together, they paired French high-speed rail experts hand-in-hand with Moroccan teams for every major task. They even co-created a dedicated training center to ensure local workers gained the technical know-how to maintain the double-deck Avelia Euroduplex trains long into the future.
California, by contrast, has hired a rotating cast of executives and outside consultants who have bloated the project’s budget to more than $125 billion, while missing deadlines, and delaying its expected opening until 2033.
Meanwhile, California has accomplished almost nothing, despite billions spent. Not one passenger rail has been laid. Not. One. Rail.
Now, in most regards, Morocco isn't a place we should seek to emulate. It's an absolute autocracy, with a king, not a figurehead king like in Britain but an actual by-gosh monarch. If King Mohammed VI points and commands a train be built, a train gets built. Morocco is also a 99 percent Muslim country, with all of the social issues that come with that.
But what Morocco did do right here, in this case, is not start from scratch. France already had pretty much what Morocco wanted to build. Morocco, once a French colony, went back to the old well and brought in, not experts in bureaucracy and waste, but actual experts in building actual railways who had actually done it before, successfully.
Now, Morocco, with the 96th largest economy in the world, has done what California, with the fourth largest economy in the world, has failed to do. If that's not illustrative of the failure of nearly uncontested Democrat government in California, I don't know what might be.
California stands at a crossroads. This could be the year for Republicans in the once-Golden state. California has the highest gas prices in the country, the highest taxes, the largest homeless population, and the highest percentage of residents on welfare. It's a portrait of failure, one that only the voters can change, and here, with this rather stark contrast between California and, no kidding, Morocco, the voters of California have another obvious reason to make just that change.
