Having lived for 6 years in the rail transport capital of the US (NYC / Philly / Northeast Corridor) and 4 years in SF, I can honestly say that I don't think there is a world where this was going to work.

Let me state for the record that I am a huge fan of rail and public transit in general, but the forces and timing working against this project were too large to be overcome even with $10B in backing.

Here are some of the reasons:

1. Lots of people here are comparing this project to projects in China. I think it's hard to overstate how one of the most expensive process (land acquisition by the government) is fundamentally different in China vs the US. The idea of "land ownership" in China is entirely different: Most private entities don't "own" land in the US sense, they may lease it for a long time (~99) years but ultimately its incredibly easy for local and national governments to execute eminent domain with little or no regard for land rights. Yes, this make public transport easier, but land rights are fundamental for the continuation of a democracy. It's not something we want to mess with.

2. Culturally, California is just not a train state. In the Northeast Corridor, trains and public transit are just more engrained in the culture. Kids learn at the age of 5 that NJ Transit, LIRR, or Metro North is the best way in and out of NYC. Most of my friends in NYC don't even have drivers licenses. Things are closer together, land is flatter, there aren't huge swaths of nature in between things, and there's such a high density of people and economic activity that trains have made sense for a long time. Yes, the NYC subway has its problems, but I can always bet that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, I can get from Manhattan to JFK in an hour. In SF it's hard to even tell if I can get across the Bay past Midnight.

3. The small decisions made about stops, contracting, and procurement for the high speed rail were more about making the project politically palpable than actual need or engineering practicality. Taking a weird detour to Palmdale, as detailed in the Vox article below, is the best example of this [1]. The Palmdale route alone made the north-south trip 12 minutes slower while costing $5 billion in extra spending. If you're going to make that kind of decision over and over again and stack turtles until everyone's happy, you're going to make a great piece of paper but nothing that will ever turn on.

4. The decision to do this wasn't organic. If you take a look at regional transit needs in CA generally, no one was stack ranking high speed rail at the top. In LA you have basic problems with inaccessibility within most of the city, the most egregious being the lack of connectivity to LAX (which just started getting built last year). In SF you have gridlock where we can't add diesel trains to CalTrain because it needs to get Electrified first by law, but that process won't happen until 2022 [2]. If we can't upgrade a regional rail that serves 1/3rd of the economic activity of the state, what makes us think we can build a high speed rail that is (back of the envelope) 10x as long? At least in the northeast, trains systems were built where there was (1) incredible demand and (2) an understanding that it could be built where value would be opened up as it was happening. Which is why those rail lines start in major metro areas and extend outward, rather than building in the central valley and working backwards.

5. Air and car travel, despite its (obvious) climate change problems, just works. It's relatively cheap, it's well understood, and given the vast distance and significant nature features between population areas, it's a good solution to a hard problem. LAX sucks, but LA has 4 regional airports that can be used once you understand how. Flights are frequent, have lots of type options, and can be purchased for $50 one way. Roads and cars work better on mountain terrain than rail, and can better serve a dispersed population. Yes, we cannot run on gasoline forever if we want to save the planet, but right now it's easy to understand why California has stuck with this solution so long given its difference to other major areas that use trains.

Overall, I was rooting for this, but this end was inevitable. But it's not the end of the world. We will learn from this and find a way, and I'm convinced in the end it will be more economical and fit California's unique parameters better than a $90B train. The solution may be something we can't see now (self-driving battery-powered cars on isolated freeway lanes, anyone?), but we'll find it. I know we will

[1] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/15/18224717/c...
[2] https://calmod.org/