You're right that the proposal is disconnected from reality -- but it's not because Amtrak can't be a competitive option for a significant portion of the popula

You're right that the proposal is disconnected from reality -- but it's not because Amtrak can't be a competitive option for a significant portion of the population. It's because of how Amtrak is funded. There are a handful of routes in the US where Amtrak is currently competitive. As others have mentioned, these are mostly in the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak should be investing in improving these, but instead treats them like a cash cow to fund unprofitable routes elsewhere. There are also a few routes that, with a little bit of investment, could be competitive. LA to San Diego is one example -- they're the #2 and #8 largest cities in the US, only 120 miles apart, and one has notoriously bad traffic. The biggest problem with current service is that some sections of the route share a single track for both directions of travel, which can lead to cascading delays. They're fixing this, but because there's so little funding, it's going to take 30 years just to lay a few dozen miles of track alongside the existing track. It would seem like a no-brainer to prioritize this. But because Amtrak requires congressional funding, and no member of congress wants to be left out, you end up getting grand plans that touch every state in the country, and you have to add routes that have no chance of being successful just to get enough votes. Eyeballing the map, it looks like the only state in the continental US without a stop is South Dakota.