> The problem is that this should've been a federal project from the start, one of many running concurrently nationwide. Doing it nationwide would give economies of scale that wouldn't be possible with these local half-measures.
What economies of scale are even possible here? California in particular is relatively isolated from the rest of the country because the thing directly to the east of it is a major desert, followed by a sparsely populated mountain range and then a very large amount of farmland.
The nearest city to California with more than a million people is Phoenix, AZ which is "only" a couple hours from the California border. The next nearest is San Antonio, TX. The distance between Phoenix and San Antonio is about a thousand miles. Neither of those cities themselves have a functional mass transit system for anyone to use even if you put a rail stop there.
California itself constitutes more than half the population of the entire western US, which is otherwise enormous with a very low population density. It doesn't make sense to put high speed rail anywhere in the western US outside of California because there aren't enough people there to use it.
The federal government isn't going to make the stuff. They'd just buy it from the existing companies that make rolling stock etc., as could any state government in the same way.
Partially correct. A private group is building high speed rail to connect Vegas to the Inland Empire. Construction has started and expected to be complete in 2028.
Las Vegas is basically on the California border and exists mainly because it's on the California border, so all the people in Southern California can go to the place where gambling is legal. It's an outlier that both doesn't get you a national high speed rail network and evidently doesn't require federal involvement to happen regardless.
What economies of scale are even possible here? California in particular is relatively isolated from the rest of the country because the thing directly to the east of it is a major desert, followed by a sparsely populated mountain range and then a very large amount of farmland.
The nearest city to California with more than a million people is Phoenix, AZ which is "only" a couple hours from the California border. The next nearest is San Antonio, TX. The distance between Phoenix and San Antonio is about a thousand miles. Neither of those cities themselves have a functional mass transit system for anyone to use even if you put a rail stop there.
California itself constitutes more than half the population of the entire western US, which is otherwise enormous with a very low population density. It doesn't make sense to put high speed rail anywhere in the western US outside of California because there aren't enough people there to use it.