To be honest I think the debates over the route miss the main issue, namely why the project is so expensive. If we could bring costs down to Spanish levels (not a country that is known for its frugality!), we could build both a direct SF-LA route and a route that hits the Central Valley cities, along with spurs to San Diego and Sacramento, and still save more than $40 billion over what the current SF-LA line is expected to cost.

Instead the debates get reduced to "we should build this no matter what the cost" and "we should cancel the project entirely." There doesn't seem to be much interest in digging into why the costs of the project are so out of line with other countries. (Which, to be fair, is a hard question to answer).

Fully on agree on trying to get costs down to Spanish-levels and other developed world costs, and building everywhere while saving money.

But the reasons for the dysfunction are pretty straight forward: there is group of engineering consultancies and construction firms (Parsons, Bechtel, HNTB, AECOM, and other non-household names) that have captured the system and profit handsomely from the status quo. All those billions of taxpayer money is going somewhere, and it's their bank accounts.

Such a project's costs are highly location specific - labour costs, geography, regulatory environment, existing infrastructure to adapt to/connect to/work around, etc. However, it usually gets better over time with experience.

When I look at it the three things I note are

The high speed rail from Grapevine to the San Fernando Valley isn't going to happen because of geology + money. Which leaves Bakersfield, Tehachapi, Palmdale as the viable route.

Gilroy to Bakerfield is the same distance whether you go down I5 or HWY99.

And the current rail corridor needs a bunch of grade separation work done. It would be dumb to build grade separated high speed rail on the west side of the valley. And at the same time also build duplicate grade separation on the east side.

If you look at the current work being done about half if it is the above mentioned grade separation.

I'll also mention the point of high speed rail was to carry passengers quickly but not as fast as possible from SF to LA. Really there are four goals. Connect the northern and southern passenger rail lines. Grade separation in the central valley. Commuter rail in the Bay Area and Socal. And avoid having to upgrade airport capacity.

Its so that you don't have to go threw the mountains and that should actually make it cheaper.

Most housing needs to be fixed with infill, not continuing sprawl around more cities.

Not to mention there will no water left after draining the Colorado River and the place will need to be abandoned before any rail can be used.

Wrong priorities here. You cannot continue agriculture in a desert.

https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/08/colorado-river-wa...