Critics: wow this is a great example of government dysfunction through excessive regulations and political steering of a engineering project.
Author: Actually, you are entirely wrong. Let me explain to you in 3000 words how this project failed due to political interference and excessive regulations in California while pretending this is somehow not CAHSR fault and also not providing any path forward to fix it.
???
While no final track has yet been laid, this constitutes the vast majority of the work to prepare the route.
This author isn't evaluating this project fairly, this author seems to be in first stage of grief: denial.
Critics: CAHSR is a bad idea and should be killed.
Author: Here's the story of how hard it is to build this novel type of large scale infrastructure, especially when people don't strongly support it.
The dysfunction is real, but the actual point was, "How much of this dysfunction and how much was just what you get with half-assed support?"
You're interpretation of that "no track has been laid" quote betrays that you aren't evaluating this fairly. You really don't understand that laying rocks and steel on a path is easier than building whole bridges and viaducts.
Author: Actually, you are entirely wrong. Let me explain to you in 3000 words how this project failed due to political interference and excessive regulations in California while pretending this is somehow not CAHSR fault and also not providing any path forward to fix it.
???
While no final track has yet been laid, this constitutes the vast majority of the work to prepare the route.
This author isn't evaluating this project fairly, this author seems to be in first stage of grief: denial.