Well, the same excuses have been made about the road system, that it's funded by gas taxes, but when people crunched the numbers, it turned out it's only about

Well, the same excuses have been made about the road system, that it's funded by gas taxes, but when people crunched the numbers, it turned out it's only about 50%. Since the subsidy you link to, varied between 70% and 80%, it could still be the case that the Airport system in California got subsidies within a small multiplicative factor over it's entire lifespan compared to the proposed costs of the high speed rail system. The objections to high speed rail IMHO, aren't 100% based on economics or funding, because other things have gotten massive subsidies, they're also based on a kind of weird political tribe association people have against trains. Let me quote George Will as an example: "To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make. Time was, the progressive cry was “Workers of the world unite!” or “Power to the people!” Now it is less resonant: “All aboard!”" So, to some people, trains are a Euro-socialist kind of thing, anti-freedom.