California High Speed Rail

I was driving down to LA from San Jose this weekend, and it took a good six hours of mind numbing driving through the monotone central valley landscape (farms on both sides flanked by foothills close by to the west and more further out the east). So I was quite excited to notice the NYT Magazine article that has the details about the route, challenges, and timeline for the recently funded high speed rail. It seems somewhat absurd that it is so difficult to build a new train line in the relatively sparse and flat california landscape when they have been built decades ago in the dense european and asian capitals. Here's hoping that the impediments raised by petty politics (e.g the city of palo alto refusing to play ball), tough forecasting (imagine estimating ridership in 10 years), and inexperience (acela is the only other high speed line in the nation) - will not hold us back and we will take a bold steps towards creating a blueprint for modern long distance public transportation for the United States. LA to SF in 2 hrs 40 minutes - si se puede!