They haven’t paid attention to the ‘high speed rail’ to nowhere in California
The whole point of these travesties is NOT to move people around, but to spend taxpayer money to reward campaign contributors and secure public works jobs to buy votes. Any actual benefit is accidental and unplanned.
First off, I oppose the taxpayer-funded HSR scheme in California and I supported the privately funded French consortium that proposed building a sensible HSR along a far more direct route.
That said, the 'rail to nowhere' meme really needs to stop being repeated because it is a non-argument.
The Federal government mirrored the Interstate Highway Act when they came up with the funding plans for HSR and they required the rural portions of the routes to be built first and then the urban portions would be built.
This is because the failed US route system that was supposed to feature four-lane highways was typified by urban parkways being built that led to two-lane oil-and-gravel roads in the rural areas. The urban politicians saw no point in funding highways in rural areas so those highways were never built.
The first Interstate was #70 and it's first stretches were built in rural Kansas, Missouri, and Colorado. This ended up connecting Denver and St. Louis. when the US Route system had failed to provide a decent road between these major cities.
And in California the local politicias are wanting to make local HSR systems with a 'promise' that maybe someday they'll connect to something. Which is a lie and the Fed will never fund these local HSR systems because they really don't go anywhere at all.
I oppose taxpayer funded HSR, but if they're going to do it then the rural sections have to be built first otherwise the urban sections wil never conect to anything at all.
Thanks for reading.