You ignore the obveous.
The politics of doing what is needed to create inner city HSR for the California plan has already killed the LA to Las Vegas route because the land takings to run a track east were deemed too expensive and politically untouchable.
They are the same NIMBY problems that killed track improvement for the Acela routes in the northeast corridor decades ago. Amtrak gave up decades ago on improving the track in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
They are once again talking about improving the NYC to DC tracks, but that has been brought up and discarded at least 4 times over the life of Acela with no progress being made.
The fun fight will be seen after the first train runs. People who fought and lost the land takings will have a fit when the first train screams past their house at 200 mph.
This is another political reality Acela ran in to, especially in Connecticut. Neighbor imposed speed restrictions have kept it to 80 mph on all but the most remote tracks.
Yet another reason why HSR is perfect for the wide open nothing in the American southwest.
