HSR failed in California largely because building effective mass transit is a secondary goal. If you look at the route, and how the process unfolded, the focus

HSR failed in California largely because building effective mass transit is a secondary goal. If you look at the route, and how the process unfolded, the focus was mostly on who was going to get paid, and helping out political friends. In the US, large transit projects are mostly about pork barrel politics and spending, and if something actually usable comes out of it, then that was a great but secondary effect. If you look at how other countries build transit, politics is more subdued and the goal is to actually build a functional system. Republicans block most transit projects as it is antithetical to their political views, and the Democrats uses it as a social spending policy and political handouts largely ignoring the needs of an actual transit system. Basically, US politics just doesn't care to build things properly because the incentives are totally off. Vox has a pretty good breakdown: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/15/18224717/california-high-speed-rail-canceled https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/15/18224717/c...