The current proposed California high speed rail route.

High speed rail has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, with a scathing state audit indicating that hundreds of millions of dollars — if not billions — may ultimately be wasted by starting construction too early to meet political deadlines, as well as other mismanagement.

I debated the future of the system last week on KPCC radio in Los Angeles, on the program Airtalk with Larry Mantle. Sparring with me was James Moore, civil engineering professor at the University of Southern California (and longtime anti-rail academic).

You can listen to the first part of the show on the Airtalk website, but the full audio (including my last rebuttal to Prof. Moore) is available here.

The short story? Some of the mismanagement is due to the complicated politics of building such a controversial system through the heart of Tea Party California opposition, while the system in general will still be needed to serve a growing population and connect the Central Valley cities to the prosperous coastal economies.