[chipotle_coyote]

Given how many people ride BART, Caltrain, and VTA light rail in my area -- and how proximity to a transit station has become a major selling point for residential development, both old and new -- at least around here it seems to be working out just fine, thanks!

While I presume you're taking a dig at the high speed rail project, it's worth remembering that that's not the whole of what "train service" means. It's also worth remembering that as of yet we don't really have a baseline for how the cost of longer-run train service compares to hyperloop service; as fun as it is to blame HSR's travails solely on being a government project, the reality is that there are very, very few private projects that are conducted on such a massive scale that we can point to and say "look, that was so much more efficient." Last but not least, there are good arguments against using "cost per passenger mile" as the be-all-end-all metric for transit, which you can find pretty easily if you're so inclined.