I have done some work with some of the PPP folks, who have built such projects, so I just have what they have said to go on about their issues with how CHSRA has gone about this. PPP's ahve been a major component of some of the more recent and succssful HSR projects. And, I'm sure that if PB, Pringle, Kopp, Diridon, or Mehdi got the entire budget for WWII, they'd probably squander that, too.

The ridership estimates do not make any sense at all, and do not compare with the numbers from the closest projects to this in market sizes, fares, and distances. The cloest comparison is probaly the successful Spanish projects, built with significant "true" at risk private investment components. The recent ticket price increases in the "new" "improved" "business plan", with tickets now higher than discount air fares, showed a very insignigicant deflection in ridership, over what I'd have expected as a transportation economist. And, the boarding by station numbers, equally nonsensical, did not comport to the totals?

For a few years I was a math teacher, and I required my students to show their work, so you could check how they got the answer. That way, if the answer was wrong, then you could see where the mistakes were, and show them how to correct it. The CHSRA projected ridership numbers seem to be lacking much documentation as to the underlying modeling methodology that you can actually "check" the assumptions and conclusions against?

But, I appreciate your spirited defense of the CHSRA, and how it can do no wrong, regardless of the overwhelming evidence of waste and incompetence. I support the concept and goals of the HSR project, unlike our other usual gainsay rail basher, and unlike some of the critics who don't offer efffective solutions to change what is wrong. But having delivered a few projects in my time, this one is in real trouble, even in Washington, because it has not been well focused, or well managed.