The poorly discussed situation is that California High Speed Rail really is a backbone type service. While SFO<->LAX is certainly the big point, the intermediary cities -- San Jose with a million people, Fresno with a half million people, Bakersfield with 363 thousand people -- are going to see substantial benefits too. Add in the cities that are planned for subsequent phases -- San Diego with a million people, Sacramento with a half million people, Oakland with 400 thousand people -- and the reasons for the project start becoming more obvious.

The one that clinched it for me was an article pointing out that the large airports in California are at capacity and expansion is either expensive, or impossible. You either need to spend couple of billion each to expand those air ports, or throw the money at high speed rail.

Also the big expense is not the high speed rail part of the system, is the commuter rail part through the bay area and LA. That;s the expensive bit. Not the straight high speed sections through the central valley.

I don't think it's about price. I believe it's about capacity. Population is growing -- in SF it's growing a lot -- but SFO and LAX are at capacity. California needs another option for moving people between LA and the Bay Area since it's not possible to fly more planes.

Actually, in NorCal there's also Oakland. And San Jose Airport is not at all busy - they just blew 1.2 billion on Terminal 3 with no airlines committing to use it.

And in SoCal, I normally use John Wayne, not LAX - one of the worst airports in the world due to endless construction.

It's still about price then but presumably the argument becomes that airfares on that route will rise enough that even expensive high speed rail is competitive.

Acela is basically priced so enough business folks who would consider flying take the train