The judge's ruling makes plenty of sense given the language of the bond act. However, while I think the CAHSR thing was designed to fail in the first place (with a bond measure that sets internally-conflicting criteria that are impossible for any real-world project to meet), I think that we do need more non-highway, non-air capacity at a higher speed than current passenger rail (mixed with freight) can provide.

Yes, current Cal-Amtrak equipment can run at 90-100, maybe even 110 with some tweaks, but that's not fast enough. Besides, if they still have to mix it up with standard freight trains 79-maybe 90 is as fast as you can go anyway. Is 200+ mph nonstop LA/Bay Area needed? I think not - let Musk's tubular train play that game if he thinks it can work. But something in between comparable to current NEC (125-150) with a couple of significant gaps filled (Bakersfield-LA, whether through Mojave or through the mountain I don't care as long as it runs in less than 2 hours; better access to the Bay Area from the Valley) should allow trip time to be cut to 5-6 hours to be competitive with driving (on a good day) or air (considering the total trip not just the flying time). That would allow a reasonable number of stops in the big cities along the line, would eat United Express and Skywest's lunch if it connects to major airports, and would meet real transportation needs. Add overnight freight using aircraft-style containers and it might have potential that even a Real Railroad could get interested in. And that kind of system and equipment would be reasonably compatible with what's being considered for LOSSAN upgrades and Desert Xpress.

Realistically, that kind of line would still run $30-40B (probably 1/2-2/3 of that just for the mountain runs) for a SF-LA segment, so a $10B "seed" even if available (which IMO it's not from the original bonds as long as the voted language exists) wouldn't go very far. And it would still bother The Farmers because it would need to be on new r/w even if mostly parallel to existing freeways or railroads - unless you want to do an Ecotopia and REPLACE I-5 with the railroad (how far do you think that would fly?).