> "High-speed rail is going to break CA financially." When I hear this, I wonder what the west would be like if people had said the same of all the infrastructu

> "High-speed rail is going to break CA financially." When I hear this, I wonder what the west would be like if people had said the same of all the infrastructure we rely on in the west today. There are several huge differences between then and now. The big one is that that infrastructure exists. High speed rail can't make a 10x difference on any factor. That infrastructure did, usually on multiple factors. Another is that that infrastructure was relatively cheap. We didn't "bet the economy" on it. CA's high-speed rail is betting CA's economy. (Govt then was roughly 3% of GDP. If it had failed, no big deal. That's not true now.) A related factor is that we didn't have as much govt debt then as now. > High speed rail may not be as critical as water, but it's ridiculous to think we can't build a modern railroad today. High speed rail isn't at all critical in CA or across the US. > If we can't build a modern railroad today then we're already broken. HSR is technically possible, but that doesn't imply that it's a good idea. > And if we're already broken, what do we have to lose? That's insane. I note that you didn't address freight....