You can argue and statistics this all ways
You can put half-baked statistics or calculations for this all ways.
California HS ignores the fact that Los Angeles is a massive sprawl area, and once you get into the Terminus station in 'down town' LA, you still have an on-journet to make and mass-transit in LA is patchy at best.
HS Rail works London - Paris - Disnetland Paris as it is generally point to point, with little onward travel - |The Eurostar station for Disneyland Paris is outside the park entrance. Can you say the same about Disney in LA , or Hollywood, or anywhere else tourists of business people want to go.
Perhaps the money would be better spent on providing Super-fast broadband to all or funding an expansion in Free health-care - both have positive economic and social effects.
UK Proposed High Speed 2 (London/Birmingham/Manchester/Leeds) rail is projecting a similar scheme of around 400 miles, but at $100m/mile, whereas California HS Rail is $170m/mile. Who is right, both are probably way out of the ballpark, and are money pits - Lots of High Speed rail has done nothing for Spain, other than add to government debt.
