Actually, he’s not. I’m not sure exactly what this refers to; just last week he said there was absolutely no reason for the Orlando-Tampa high speed rail and he was going to do everything to get it defunded.
There’s nothing wrong with HSR in general, if it connects places that are reasonably far apart where a sufficient number of people want to go and need to get there quickly (between two large but distant cities, for example); but almost all of these HSR projects are nothing but pork, and there’d be no ridership if they got built.
Mica is very much behind the idea of a Jacksonville to Miami coast passenger rail, which I think is a great idea. It’s not HSR, however, because it needs to make a fair number of stops - but it would be a lot faster and easier than driving.
I think they just got Mica in an out of context remark.
There is a mode of transportation that is bit faster than rail.. It is called a car..