Great look at California’s Proposition 1A:
http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/embed/highspeed-rail-on-the-ballot
The mind-boggling myopia it takes to call something like this an “extravagance” mystifies me. When did we get so hinky about investing in our future? I will bet anyone $100 right now that ridership on this train, if it is built, exceeds the most optimistic assessments. I’ll bet another hundred that five years after it is built, a study will be done that finds that total social return exceeds invested capital by several decimal places.
Once the first American high-speed rail system is in place, other heavily populated regions are going to start wanting them to.
