Money Well Spent
This will probably be money well spent for both the short term and the long term. In the short term it will provide a lot of construction jobs and will improve the infrastructure by focusing away from the private one person transportation system, IE car, and focusing more on multiple person hi volume transportation. In the long term it will avoid a lot of the costs involved in maintaining a dead transportation model, IE the single passenger auto, and will bring some badly needed hi tech jobs to maintain the new rail systems. A hi speed link between the metro areas of SF, LA, and SD sounds like a solid plan to me, certainly more cost effective than flying or driving.
