Agreed. Our local and regional transit story is so poor right now. Improving that would drastically improve the lives of lower- and middle-income people who have to drive on our over-congested highways day after day.

At least in the Bay Area, part of the draw of HSR is that it's also the motivation for improvements to Caltrain (electrification, grade separation, mythical extension to downtown).

One of the sad parts of this story is that, in order to sabotage the HSR, Republicans wound up sabotaging the federal share of Caltrain electrification, even though electrification is good on its own merits.

So we're going to spend $66 billion on something that primarily benefits higher income people just for the indirect benefits it might have for local transit?

How do you figure? If the target price is equivalent to a plane ticket that's not really such a high income group to target, is it? Besides, cars are inherently a luxury item. Poorer folks take public transit (e.g. trains).

Cars are not a luxury item in the U.S. 88% of U.S. households own a car. If lower income folks travel between SF and LA, they'll probably drive the car they already own. Gas + depreciation for the SF-LA drive is about the same as the cost of a round-trip plane ticket, but as soon as you factor in additional passengers (say a family) there is a massive cost advantage to a car over a plane or train. And people who can't afford generally don't fly places, they take the bus.

HSR is not "public transit." Public transit helps lower-income people commute to their jobs. Lower income people don't travel regularly between SF and LA--they have no need to. They might do it occasionally, but they don't do it often enough where the convenience of a train is going to mean much if the train isn't any cheaper than flying.[1]

The folks who really benefit from HSR are business travelers. They're the ones who need to travel city center to city center regularly. They're the ones who really have a reason to prefer taking a train, because they can work more comfortably en route.

[1] Also, the target price ($86 one way) is a completely fantasy. At that price, it would be one of the cheapest HSR trips per mile in the world. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/fare-cost-ride-california-b.... There is no way California is going to run the cheapest anything.

Why is it relevant if it benefits people with high or low income? Are we back to Marxist class warfare?

I’m kind of smitten with the idea that if we’re going to spend a bunch of public money, it shouldn’t be used to subsidize a service directed st higher income people.