A Scenic Tour of Red Tape: Tracking the Slowest High-Speed Train in the Country

On a recent Friday, Mark Wasser, an eminent-domain lawyer from Sacramento, embarked on a one-day road trip of more than 500 miles. It is one that he has taken often over the past decade.

A tall and trim man in his 70s, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, Mr. Wasser folded himself into the driver’s seat of his car and aimed south. He drove toward dozens of California’s high-speed rail construction projects scattered across the vast farmland of the Central Valley.

No one has represented more eminent domain cases involving the rail project than Mr. Wasser. In the long distances between stops, visiting clients and seeing the changing landscape, he pondered something that Gov. Gavin Newsom had said a few days before.

Mr. Newsom was a guest on “Real Time With Bill Maher” when the host blamed lawyers, lobbyists, contractors, environmentalists, unions and others for the delays.

“The biggest delay on high-speed rail,” Mr. Newsom replied, “has been taking 2,270 properties under eminent domain and ultimately getting the environmental work cleared.”

It was a bold and pointed casting of blame for a project that is a running joke — a not-running joke — and a punchline for government inefficiency and bureaucratic entanglement.