California high speed rail: Central Valley line alone won’t be profitable. Building to Gilroy could be

California’s long-embattled bullet train faces another dilemma.

A new report released Friday by the California High-Speed Rail Authority warns that the scaled-down Central Valley segment — the only portion of the line currently under construction — is unlikely to be profitable when trains begin running, perhaps as early as 2032. The report projects that revenue will cover only 45% to 74% of operating costs.

Now, the rail authority is pushing to build the project beyond the 171-mile stretch between Merced and Bakersfield, which Gov. Gavin Newsom embraced in 2019 as a more modest goal, delaying the original plan for a line between San Francisco to Los Angeles to an undetermined date.

But Ian Choudri, the authority’s CEO, doesn’t want the project to stall out in the Central Valley. Build