Weighing in from “Team Fail” are the editors of the Los Angeles Times:

California’s high-speed train wreck
The state’s plan to build a bullet train has become a monument to the ways poor planning, mismanagement and political interference can screw up major public works. We can do better.
California’s much-vaunted high-speed rail project is, to put it bluntly, a train wreck. Intended to demonstrate the state’s commitment to sustainable, cutting-edge transportation systems, and to show that the U.S. can build rail networks as sophisticated as those in Europe and Asia, it is instead a monument to the ways poor planning, mismanagement and political interference can screw up major public works. For anti-government conservatives, it is also a powerful argument for scrapping President Obama’s national rail plans, rescinding federal funding and canceling the project before any more money is wasted on it.
We couldn’t disagree more. We pointed out back in 2008, before voters approved nearly $10 billion in state bonds to fund the project under Proposition 1A, that it would be more expensive and difficult to build than its backers were letting on. But we endorsed it anyway because of the economic and environmental benefits the train could bring. The benefits still outweigh the costs, and none of the $43-billion project’s troubles are insurmountable. Fortunately, a report last week from the state Legislative Analyst’s Office offers strong recommendations for getting the system back on track.
The train’s biggest problems can be laid at the feet of the High Speed Rail Authority, which is overseeing its construction. Inexperienced board members appointed by the governor and Legislature on the basis of political patronage rather than expertise have made a host of poor decisions. Not the least boneheaded of these is the board’s plan to take a circuitous route from Los Angeles to Bakersfield by veering through Palmdale and Lancaster. Compared with the more direct route along Interstate 5 through the Grapevine, this would add 30 miles to the trip plus $1 billion in construction costs, and make it all but impossible for the train to meet its promised travel time of 2 hours and 40 minutes from L.A. to San Francisco. The legislative analyst calls for slashing the authority’s proposed budget for next year by $185 million and eventually eliminating it, transferring the bullet train’s oversight to another agency. We heartily agree.

More here, but what the editors miss is that the numbers don’t make sense, no matter what you do.

Anyway, “Team Rail” isn’t happy with the more than accurate criticism from the Times:

Blowback: Mend, don’t end, California’s bullet-train program
Ryan Stern, who serves on the board of Californians For High Speed Rail and lives in downtown Los Angeles, responds to The Times’ May 16 editorial, “California’s high-speed train wreck.”
The interstate freeway system is the mainstay of urban transportation in cities across America, including Los Angeles. But the first interstate construction project didn’t happen in a city. It was a lonely stretch of road in central Missouri that received the first federal interstate funds in 1956. More money followed, and the system grew rapidly, connecting cities and creating jobs.
California’s high-speed rail system — for which the first tracks will be laid in the Central Valley, a plan The Times decries — will follow a similar path of growth. Grass-roots supporters of the high-speed rail project can’t wait to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours. That’s why we are more concerned than almost anyone else in the state that this project be built efficiently. However, the proposals advocated by The Times would so severely weaken the voter-approved project that we would probably never see it built at all.
The Times’ criticism of the Central Valley starting point misses some key points. This segment doesn’t just connect small towns; it connects two large cities, Bakersfield (metropolitan population of 800,000) and Fresno (metropolitan population of 1.1 million). It’s the cheapest place to begin construction while also creating tens of thousands of desperately needed jobs, providing an economic stimulus to the entire state. Perhaps most important, it will form the backbone of the statewide project, a functional first investment regardless of which section follows on the construction timeline.
Trains should go where the people are. That’s why the choice of a Palmdale route was a sound decision. The Antelope Valley’s population is projected to be about 1 million by 2020, when the trains would begin service. A station at Palmdale also allows for an easy connection to the proposed bullet train to Las Vegas.

The rest here.