The question remains whether spending more money we don't have makes as much sense as cutting the crap out of taxes and actually inviting businesses back to areas with incentives instead.
I'm sorry, no one is going to convince me that high speed rail is going to be successful in the U.S. because it has been in places like Japan (which is smaller than California but has over 3 times as many people) or France (about 3/4ths the size of Texas with a population of over 60,000,000). The number that's being shopped is between $12,000,000.00 and $58,000,000.00 per MILE. I'll venture a guess that the number is going to be at least double that and quite likely SIGNIFICANTLY more.
That means a rail between Rochester and Buffalo will cost taxpayers between $720,000,000.00 and $4 BILLION for one length of track. You'll forgive me if I think that's ridiculous given the state of infrastructure. That money would be much better spent on developing a real electrical infrastructure in this country - NUCLEAR POWER ANYONE?