[Diggity]

For land rights issues it is easy enough to create stations that are sufficiently distanced from the city centers but close enough to tap into local Bus/Uber-ish/car rental options. Most Californian metropolis' have an area distanced enough but accessible where land is still relatively cheap, the exception being LA which has sprawled into Orange County and completely enveloped other regions.

However going through mountain in an environmentally conscious way gets radically expensive in very short order. Additionally this style of construction tends to have its own legally contentious issues. (Dam construction for water management being comparative)

[btilly]

I disbelieve in your "easy enough". Certainly it is a problem that the plans for high speed rail never solved.

You already pointed out that Los Angeles was a problem. For San Francisco the route chosen ran into problems 30 miles south of San Jose, where they were planning to use existing rails (at slower speeds). And once you're in San Jose, you still have a long ways to go to get into San Francisco.

See https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-... for verification.