I am a Czech, so no dog in this particular fight barks for me.

But the French train company SNCF abandoned the Californian high-speed rail project, citing local political dysfunctionality and comparing it unfavorably to ... Morocco.

https://www.businessinsider.com/french-california-high-speed...

That is a bit ironic now isn't it. Now that Morocco has high speed rail, but California doesn't.

The California high speed rail project never made any sense, even before political dysfunction.

Made perfect sense. Uncomfortable length to drive, and end to end trip time would be shorter (and more comfy) on a highspeed train than on a plane (getting to the airport early, security, baggage collection, taxi to the city, etc).

It made no economic sense at all.

Like any transportation projects it won't make economic sense if you ignore wider societal impacts. Highway expansion or airport expansion would neither ever make any economic sense at all if you'd apply the same narrow model. Now if you include climate impacts and the true cost of the climate catastrophe HSR is really the only transit project on this corridor that does make sense.

I'm sure if you looked at the cost per unit of CO2 emission avoided the CA HSR project was still completely ridiculous.

Ridiculous compared to what? Freeway expansion? Airport expansion? Do nothing?

Freeway expansion is not that much cheaper, and if you factor in the cost of 6 hour drives (or 8 hour bus) over the entire users, I’m not sure freeway expansion comes out in favor.

Airport expansion is also ridiculously expensive. The airspace between San Fransisco and Los Angeles is already super congested. You will probably need to build whole new airports to offer the same capacity as high speed rail. Airport expansion also fails to service the Central Valley, which leads to further economic depression of the millions of people who live there, making this option even more economically ridiculous.

This leave us with do nothing. Sure people can take the 9 hour bus or the 12 hour train and save the carbon footprint, or they can ignore the climate crisis and drive the 6 hours or navigate the dozens of airport combinations. This is by far the cheapest option, but only if you ignore the economic impacts of people choosing not to travel between between population centers in California. Given the cost of travel in California, both in time and carbon emissions, than keeping the travel options as is, is also a ridiculous option.

Perhaps high speed rail is economically ridiculous, but given the options we have, it is still the most sane option.

> Ridiculous compared to what? Freeway expansion? Airport expansion? Do nothing?

All the other ways of eliminating CO2 emission, including direct air capture.

Be sure to use realistic estimates of how many people will use this boondoggle.