There is no fixing up stupidities in our lifetime. At the very least what I call the "Orphan ARRA" valley segment will be built. This is a totally and utterly political undertaking by the party patronage machine which controls California. There is no way the courts will rule against Jerry Brown - the judges were appointed and anointed by the machine. They are going to blow a pile of money - they might even splurge on loser rail to Vegas. You could even say the general quality of planning is typified by the Las Vegas Monorail. The CHSRA has a similar future.

And Kopp's position is self-contradictory; he obsesses on the Peninsula "blend" as undermining true hsr but ignores the DogLeg detour where shifting to Tejon would speed up travel times much more dramatically.

I could not disagree more with the contention that "UHSR straight-through SF-LA" would fail. The Norcal-Socal mountain crossing is missing from the State rail network and merits completion under any and all circumstances, if you believe in passenger rail. The first link should have been Bakersfield to Santa Clarita via Tejon, even if they only initially have the money to start mining the tunnels. If will be completed. After that we already own the I-5 corridor and this route would be fast and cheap.

Bako to LA is standalone enough for proof of concept. The Orphan ARRA is not and its ridership will be composed mostly of the curious. UHSR will be successful enough to satisfy the public the project is justified. Remember airlines don't always make money all the time but still prove their worth. DogLegRail is not worthy.