[JumpCrisscross]

> likely HSR would not have been approved in the first place if the central valley had been excluded

Then don't build it. That money would have been far better spent improving urban metro and regional rail. (And airports and roads and charging stations, et cetera.)

[saagarjha]

That money did literally improve urban metro and regional rail–Caltrain electrification came out of it.

[dragonwriter]

> That money would have been far better spent improving urban metro and regional rail.

CA HSR was the political lever to get funding to improve urban metro and regional rail, so, in a sense, the money was spent doing that.

[jimt1234]

> Then don't build it. That money would have been far better spent...

...only literally anything else!