Among other things, rail is worthless in CA, because you need a car to get anywhere anyway.
If you can afford to rent a car at the end of your train ride, you can afford a plane ticket.
In my opinion, most likely, the CA rail proposal is just a political folly being undertaken by corruptocrats who have ideas to profit from it.
Yes, the rail would be useful for poor people who want to visit family, but that is not a business case, and does not justify harvesting tens of billions from the innocent citizens of CA. (Even if a tyranny of the majority voted to do it.)
> Among other things, rail is worthless in CA, because you need a car to get anywhere anyway.
Which is one reason a not-insignificant part of the HSR plan in California is improving commuter rail and other connecting mass-transit systems that will interface with HSR, to reduce exactly that problem.
If you can afford to rent a car at the end of your train ride, you can afford a plane ticket.
In my opinion, most likely, the CA rail proposal is just a political folly being undertaken by corruptocrats who have ideas to profit from it.
Yes, the rail would be useful for poor people who want to visit family, but that is not a business case, and does not justify harvesting tens of billions from the innocent citizens of CA. (Even if a tyranny of the majority voted to do it.)