The problem with local infrastructure projects is their responsibility and execution fall to local community leaders (in this case local = state of California). These leaders are far less efficient and impactful than the federal government, a bar which is already way too low. Nearly every city in the US has had recent collisions with corruption, blatant mismanagement, ideological forces co-opting process, etc. and so most local infrastructure projects are doomed from the start.<p>The problem with high speed rail, then, is that it is always going to be a local (=state) infrastructure project. America is far, far, far too large for high speed rail to be feasible at a national level, and so we have invested in airports. This is largely a success; much of the year you can travel from NYC to Miami (~1200 mi, roughly UK -> Spain) for $100-200 in a few hours. There are, of course, many issues with air travel that we are still working on, but unless there is a breakthrough to make supersonic land travel affordable, we are stuck with air travel at a national level.<p>But where do we go from here? We know the federal process is too bloated to succeed with infrastructure projects, and when it is forced to it ends up being prohibitively expensive. We know the state process is doomed to fail and similarly be very expensive. We have already tried privatizing it and failed, and even when subsidizing private industry we get subpar results at best. What options are even left at this point?