Simply put, even if all the environmental / lobbying / no-car-at-the-destination issues were resolved, the distances of California (and population densities) wo

Simply put, even if all the environmental / lobbying / no-car-at-the-destination issues were resolved, the distances of California (and population densities) would still make it economically challenging to have HSR a slam dunk compared to flying. HSR breaks even with flying at about _200-300 miles_ journey. That is, if the planned journey is within that range, for similar pricing, people will choose 50-50 rail over flying (in aggregate, in Europe, Asia). New York to Washington/Boston distances. Greater than that, flying has the advantage. (People will incrementally choose flying the longer the distance). This takes into account typical traffic, getting to the airport, check-in, all that stuff. San Francisco to Los Angeles is 380 miles. Add to that the destination rental car issues, etc. And we haven't even talked pricing yet. Even if you got that all out of the way, flying is still often better than rail. Even on Tokyo-Osaka route, one of the pinnacles of HSR, there are almost comparable flights serving the route as shinkansen. I know we all wish for high speed rail as a demonstration of our technological prowess. But in recent years even I've soured on it for California, given how incompetent we seem to be on top of rail's structural disadvantage in the state. The money would bring far more benefits if spent elsewhere to solve our traffic, commute, suburban issues.