It is crucial that the hsr try to remain as private and self-sustaining as possible. The reason is obvious – if it is government-run and meandering and stopping in every podunk it will require a significant and on-going public subsidy.
I think you mix several independent points into one statement:

First: the slower trains stopping each 5-20 km (3-6 miles) will require subsidies. Regardless of operator ownership (there are many such private operators that operate such routes dependent on subsidies). The same goes for faster trains. They don’t need operational subsidies despite the fact that most of them are operated by government-owned company.

Second: you seem to assume that all trains do have to run at the same speed. This is only true in bottlenecks. In other sections, the track can accomodate train of three to four stopping patterns. In case of CA HSR, the slow trains are unlikely to run on its track (because of low intensity of commuter trains or quadruple tracking) leaving room for more expresses.

There is no such as earmarked in a cash crisis – everything is on the table and BART has a sterling track record of scoring funds. Its passenger counts way exceed any the hsr could hope for.
Every commuter rail system has higher ridersip compared to long-distance operations from the same city. Yet the long-distance operations are more profitable. So BART revenue numbers say have no relation to future HSR numbers. By the way, commuter rail systems were profitable in the USA to 1950′s coinciding with “great american streetcar scandal” and building of government-paid interstate system.

To rub in the salt, the hsr, after slowing down the San Joaquin Valley line with a gratuitous detour, tries to make up the time with an overbuilt Caltrain and demands for unrealistic speeds on the Peninsula
The 200 km/h ain’t no unrealistic speed. I’ts top speed of conventional train operations. By the way much quieter than diesel trains operating at 40 mph.

<quote.Places like Palo Alto are generally vastly more sympathetic to the concept of hsr and anti-auto than the Reaganite Central Valley and Orange County. Yet you deride them as nimbys for wanting to keep their towns pleasant.
When somebody supports anything as long as it out of sight, it’s NIMBY by definition. No matter what the actual thing is. In this particular case, much of the opposition is determined by the fact that most of those people have never seen electric rail operations.

The good citizen more than ever just wants to keep his place, his back yard, protected from social decay, ie blight.
Do I understand well that you suggest that HSR drives crime rates up? If so, what do you base it on?

All you growth-mongers are accomplishing is revving up the pace of environmental degradation. California’s malaise is overpopulation more than anything else. You are equating growth with progress. Not. “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”. A parking lot in Palmdale for the wage slaves bound for LA under a pall of smog.

In Spain, average transit worker wages were about $36,000 a year. A little less, but not substantially so.

This is proportional to the generally higher wages and living costs in the USA vs Spain. The average personal income here is $32,000 a year, and in Spain it is $21,000, about a 3 to 2 ratio, similar to the difference in transit wages between Spain and California.

Furthermore, wages are not as big an expense for long-distance rail. While a transit system (like Long Beach Transit) may spend 80% of expenditures on wages and benefits, Amtrak spends only 50%. With faster trains, HSR will have an even lower percentage of labor costs (with more spent on energy, capital expenses, etc). The future price of energy, steel and concrete is more important to future HSR fares than the costs of labor. Fortunately, rising energy prices will cause many people to switch from planes and cars to the trains.

Layer #1: It’s a state project connecting north and south and planned to mitigate some need to expand freeways and airports and decrease reliance on polluting fossil burning fuels. Map-wise….Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced and Stockton are pearls on the string connecting LA & SF.

Layer #2: Serve population centers of today…. and tomorrow. If you did not know… the Central Valley is among the fastest growing parts of the state. That trend will continue because land is more plentiful and cheaper in the Central Valley.

The number of people traveling by air between the SF Bay Area, and Los Angeles is about 13 million (taken from my prior calculations here: http://cahsr.blogspot.com/2009/08/wapo-joins-hsr-stupidity.html?showComment=1251160874469#c2438657623958699777).

Driving is way more than this, my estimation is 80-100 million auto trips between LA & the Bay (interpolated from this: http://www.bts.gov/publications/america_on_the_go/long_distance_transportation_patterns/html/figure_02.html)