I completely agree. I wanted to like the HSR project, but between bureaucracy and negotiation problems like holdouts by private actors, environmental litigation by private attorneys-general [1] and so forth, it just looks doomed. The fact that they don't anticipate electrifying the rail lines from San Francisco to San Jose until 2020 is just absurd. Last time I went down to Stanford (~35 miles from where I live) for a conference, the only way I could get there by 8am on Saturday morning by public transport required a $60 taxi journey for the last few miles, or taking a bus to San Jose and then going back north from there.
1. Dredging the port of Oakland to allow larger ships to dock (thereby boosting the Bay area economy) sounds like such a simple idea, and yet it took 25 years of litigation and a major rethink in the management of infrastructure projects to get it done: http://www.law.nyu.edu/ecm_dlv/groups/public/@nyu_law_websit...
1. Dredging the port of Oakland to allow larger ships to dock (thereby boosting the Bay area economy) sounds like such a simple idea, and yet it took 25 years of litigation and a major rethink in the management of infrastructure projects to get it done: http://www.law.nyu.edu/ecm_dlv/groups/public/@nyu_law_websit...