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SACRAMENTO — While much of the squabbling over California’s high-speed rail project has focused on its huge construction price tag, the cost to taxpayers just to plan the bullet train is also soaring.

Once every four years, America’s civil engineers rate the nation’s major infrastructure and issue a Report Card for America’s Infrastructure (Report Card). We got our copy from Stephen Urbanek, pavement preservation manager for Sonoma County’s Department of Transportation and Public Works.

Judging by a new statewide poll, California lawmakers were smart to pull an $11.1-billion water bond off last fall’s ballot.

The Reason Foundation, a libertarian-leaning think tank, says in a new report that California is facing big challenges in improving driving conditions on its state-owned roads.

In his State of the State address Thursday, Gov. Jerry Brown reiterated his pitch to protect California’s water supply. But in a speech lawmakers repeatedly interrupted with applause, Brown’s plea to spend billions on water elicited silence. He was speaking to a joint session of the legislature, but his message is really for consumers — and the agencies that supply water to them.

The Port of Long Beach is betting billions of dollars on its future. This is a bet it has to make to compete globally. Long Beach’s Board of Harbor Commissioners is expected Monday to formally approve a $1.2 billion budget for the massive Middle Harbor terminal expansion project.