The California bullet train authority is moving ahead with an aggressive plan to issue its biggest contract in history, steering into sharp criticism by federal regulators and even the state-appointed peer review panel that it is overreaching.
The agency took a key step last week toward issuing a 30-year-long contract to install track, set up high-voltage electrical lines, create a digital signaling system, build a heavy maintenance train garage and obligate future maintenance of the equipment and track.
It would cover future track from San Jose to Bakersfield, more than half the proposed Los Angeles-to-San Francisco system. It would lock the state into a maintenance contract, as well as equipment, on segments that it currently does not have money to build.