Such monumental projects should be built by a government that has no requirement to balance budget, market power to borrow practically unlimited amounts of money and one who can print money if the project does not work out. That would be the Federal Govt. of United States in 1930s.
The Federal Govt in the 2010s is in weaker position to fund such projects than the one in the 1930s because the debt-to-GDP ratio in the 1930s was much smaller than today. Most people miss this very important point.
Almost any great highly expensive project that you can think of in the world was built by a govt. that met conditions that I described above.
But Feds can still do it. So if they want to build high speed rail in CA and pay for it we should all welcome them here.
However, the State Govt of CA is a different animal. They have constitutional requirement to balance their books every year, they can not borrow unlimited amount of money from bond markets and they do not print their own currency. Also the last time I checked, we have a severe problem balancing the budget as is.
State Govt. of CA can not afford HSR and should not dream up such projects which have high probability of ending up as white elephants.
