To be honest I think the debates over the route miss the main issue, namely why the project is so expensive. If we could bring costs down to Spanish levels (not a country that is known for its frugality!), we could build both a direct SF-LA route and a route that hits the Central Valley cities, along with spurs to San Diego and Sacramento, and still save more than $40 billion over what the current SF-LA line is expected to cost.

Instead the debates get reduced to "we should build this no matter what the cost" and "we should cancel the project entirely." There doesn't seem to be much interest in digging into why the costs of the project are so out of line with other countries. (Which, to be fair, is a hard question to answer).