The biggest problem is that the Santa Monica Mountains block the high speed rail from connecting to LA. The closest they can get is Burbank. Having lived in LA

The biggest problem is that the Santa Monica Mountains block the high speed rail from connecting to LA. The closest they can get is Burbank. Having lived in LA for college, I can tell you that the time it takes to get from say Santa Monica to Burbank is often more than it takes to fly to San Francisco from LAX. I'm not kidding. Flight Time: https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=LAX;t=SFO;d=2016-12-06;r=2016-12-10;q=lax+to+san+francisco+flight+time https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=LAX;t=SFO;d=2016-12... Traffic Time from Santa Monica to Burbank alone: https://www.google.com/search?q=santa+monica+to+burbank&btnG= https://www.google.com/search?q=santa+monica+to+burbank&btnG... The plan fully acknowledges this short coming and responds with nothing more than a shoulder shrug to the glaring problem. Now consider the costs of the train compared to that of a flight, when you have factored in LA's terrible public transportation and suddenly flights are clearly more economical. Even worse is that California only has less than 50% of the funding for the project secured and that is without cost overruns. Jerry Brown is hoping to put enough sunk cost into the rail line that we are forced to build the entire thing much to the benefit of the select few land owners in the central california. I'm all for improved public transportation but the whole thing is a giant scam taking advantage of Californians affinity for the environment and ignorance of bond measures.I have yet to hear a convincing argument on why people would take the train when they could be in SF by the time the get to the train station.