"In 2008, voters approved a $10 billion bond to begin construction of a bullet train from Los Angeles to San Francisco that would make that trip in less than three hours. So who knew that by 2011 the general consensus would be that the project is an ill-conceived, mismanaged boondoggle? Former Amtrak spokesman and Reason Foundation writer Joseph Vranich knew. In 2008, before the state Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, he called the project "science fiction." He said the train won't travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours because that exceeds the speed of all existing high-speed rail. But on French railway schedules, a TGV (Train À Grande Vitesse) takes two hours, 38 minutes to go from Paris to Avignon... 430 miles... L.A.-to-San Francisco...is 432. So what's going on here? It's simple. Vranich makes stuff up ... The Reason Foundation says the Europeans are abandoning rail in favor of driving and flying. Nonsense. Transportation market share of European high-speed rail lines has grown steadily and many are near 80 percent."
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SF Gate: The great high-speed rail lie, SF Gate, Roger Christensen (3 August 2011)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/High-speed_rail
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High-speed rail
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