It's hard to overcome the free shit army, especially if they're in the legislature. Barack promised them lots of money, and they and the voters bit.

Florida was offered similar money. The legislature drooled, the governor said no. So, instead we have this:

Just last month, a fleet of brand-new passenger trains, painted in eye-popping colors such as magenta, azure and lime green, all with yellow accents, started carrying riders between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. If all goes according to plan, they will soon start servicing Miami, too, rolling down 66 miles of one of Florida’s most congested corridors in an hour.

...

But what’s more startling is how the service is being paid for. It isn’t the state of Florida or the municipalities along the route that are putting up most of the funds; it’s a private company that’s convinced it can make money by building and running the $3.1 billion project largely on its own. By 2020, the company, named All Aboard Florida, hopes to extend its “Brightline” service all the way to the Orlando airport, 168 miles north of West Palm Beach. With top speeds of 125 mph, the train could take passengers from Orlando to Miami in a relaxed three hours, rather than the four stressful hours it usually takes in a car.

http://www.govtech.com/fs/infrastructure/Floridas-Latest-Railroad-Is-a-Mostly-Private-Gamble.html

I wish them luck. But I suspect they'll eventually have to come hat-in-hand for subsidies from someone. Even densely populated Europe and Japan trains are subsidized.

"The free shit army" is well put. Ugh.

And I suspect you're exactly right about the subsidies they'll come calling for.

My first thoughts, hey they are better than NASA! Isn't NASA averaging 100x predicted costs these days and decades behind schedule.

second thoughts, if those are your priorities then you need to get out and vote them. Clearly not many in California share your priorities and that doesn't look like it is going to change any time soon.

On the other hand, if the subsidies are less than the cost of building and maintaining new roads, bridges, and related infrastructure, that may not be a horrible trade off.

Well, it's become obvious (if it wasn't already) that the only real purpose of the train program is to enrich cronies. California's government is exploiting the quasi-religion of environmentalism, and they're laughing all the way to the bank.

You had me at boobs.

I live in Europe. Trains work here because the population density is about nine times that of the US, and probably 90 times that of the western US.

High Speed Rail will be a giant smoking money pit. You'd think the morons responsible for this thing would realize they are using a 19th century tool as if it is somehow better than 21st century solutions.

Oh, wait. Never mind. They are morons.

Railroads have rarely made money on passenger rail.

That's why the government had to take it over US passenger rail and consolidate it into Amtrak, which loses money on every route, even on the heavily-ridden Northeastern Corridor.

The iconic Old West passenger train existed because the government forced the railroads to add passenger service. The railroads made very little on it and dumped passenger service as soon as they could.

Henry Flagler might have made money on his Florida line, but I suspect any actual profit was made on the hotels he owned along the line instead of the line itself. And land speculation with his railroad bringing in potential buyers.

European and Asian passenger rail is highly subsidized by the state. Lacking the impact of Henry Ford and his ubiquitous Model T, railroads remained the chief way for people to get from town to town there vs. the US where the automobile was coming into prominence. Ford's cheap and easily-produced "Tin Lizzie" modernized US society and the US economy.

The French would later seek to emulate Ford's success in modernizing his country with the 2CV, the West Germans with the Volkswagen, and the East Germans with the Trabant, but those efforts were post-war efforts and had to surmount obstacles imposed by the effects of World War II on the combatant countries; the Trabant also had to contend with rigid state control of manufacturing and design.

Today's environmentalists see the modernization wrought by Ford's Tin Lizzie as an unmitigated disaster, but without it, the US would be a much more pastoral nation and probably not the economic and military powerhouse in which they live in comfort.

A former German general interviewed for a book on the Red Ball Express stated that the genius of the US Army in World War II was not in having better equipment or better soldiers, he held the Germans superior in both those regards, but in the ability to get arms and supplies to the point at which they were needed quickly.

Driving a truck, he told the interviewer, was a specialized skill in the Wehrmacht, but a general skill in the US Army; allowing the Americans to set up and maintain an ad hoc supply line hundreds of miles long and growing longer by the day as Allied armies drove the Germans back.

Monorail!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDOI0cq6GZM

"We're twice as smart as the people of Shelbyville, just tell us your idea and we'll vote for it!"

People who vote for this crap never actually expect to pay for it.
Consider that stuff like high-speed rail and commuter trains are super sexy to recent college grads and techies/marketing people/startup-culture folks. Also consider that these young people are almost transient. They live in LA or San Jose for a couple years with a few roommates. But CA's so shallow, dude, so next it's Austin. But, hey, it's hot here, and your college roommate just moved to Boulder, so that will be the next stop... So why not vote for whatever sounds cool and progressive? It's gonna solve all of our traffic problems, right? And when your expenses consist of rent and utilities split three ways in the gentrified part of town, plus your bar tab, life is pretty good. And what does it matter if people in Los Angeles or Austin or Nashville have to pay for it, you won't be there anyway. Plus, you're going to be young and have a pocket full of money forever, right?

The very people who are pushing trains will never themselves take one--too low class for them. There is so much data showing how expensive a boondoggle trains are, and yet this is ignored. ugh

James Bovard came up with a good description- the battered voter syndrome. We, the voters, believe the promises of our politicians to do better this time, like battered wives who won't leave their husbands.
I usually find Bovard's books to be interesting, but depressing.

I've heard good things about the Dallas light rail. And the Houston train has good ridership, or so I've heard. And best of all the Houston train is free . . . because all the ticket machines are broken.

Rail is an incredibly efficient way to move bulk freight. Passengers, not so much.

When people change travel patterns, buses or planes can be easily rerouted and reallocated, because they're not on rails.

To that extent Bw1 personal automobiles are the best.