Undoubtedly if built it will get used. However: it's a nice fantasy; but in an over-committed region of a debtor nation, the implementation requires beggaring o

Undoubtedly if built it will get used. However: it's a nice fantasy; but in an over-committed region of a debtor nation, the implementation requires beggaring other vital programs or putting the country another couple hundred billion in debt for a public works project that employs a few thousand people to build, a thousand or so to run, and will deliver questionable economic value in a state that is already overcommitted in so many ways. The problem with this California idea is that its proponents evoke the Bullet Train but it will never be the Bullet Train. The Japanese built that thing in 1964, which is when we should have started modernizing our own railways but didn't because GM decreed that its buses and trucks should replace railroads, which they largely succeeded. The resources for a huge project existed then; they don't exist today. It's also worth pointing out that California is in the political dog house post-2016 elections. They backed the wrong horse, their dominant party is in the minority nationally, and they are not going to get a lot of sympathy in the Congress or from most other states who are going to be asked to foot the bill for this turkey. If the people of California want to build this thing, go right ahead; no one's stopping you. Just don't ask the rest of the country to pay for it.