Explore the California High Speed Rail route from above in an airplane to not only see how construction is coming along, but also to observe all of the terrain standing in the way of finishing one of the largest engineering projects in the world. Starting in downtown Los Angeles, we fly 270 miles north along the route through the Mojave desert and Central Valley.
If serious about the goals, they would have followed a straight, shortest route from LA to SF, running frequently, with feeder lines to/from Central Valley and larger coastal cities (Santa Barbara, SLO, Monterey, Salinas, Santa Cruz, etc)
Given where it ended up, mainly because of Congressional shenanigans, it will end up as a little-used, publicly subsidized boondoggle. I’m all for efficient public transit, but this is such a missed opportunity, and a huge waste of taxpayer money. We’ll have mid-range electric airplanes before this thing gets going.