Hyperloop was invented to try to kill light rail. It succeeded at killing Maryland's new venture and Illinois'. Neither were built because Hyperloop promised bullshit. Elon hates public transport.
The mistake is thinking Elon is a moron screwing everything up on accident. He isn’t. He’s an Afrikaner white supremacist Nazi who is causing all this damage on purpose.
Starlink and SpaceX should be nationalized before he gets a chance to weaponize those companies against the western world as well.
Giant infrastructure projects are a weakness of democracies. It's tough to get everyone to agree and pay for huge projects that take long term vision and planning.
Or you could call it a strength because it's stable and can't be changed too fast by one guy with a short term bad idea.
This is misleadingly reductionist. California high speed rail has made consistant progess in that time. That progress has been slower than ourslowest expectations. It demonstrates the void of expertise the US has in rail megaprojects. However, that expertise is being built, slowly and painfully. Its still forward progress for a nation which tore up half its rail overthe last 50 years.
It's much easier to build rail in places that weren't designed around cars. Even in rural China people live in condos and apartments with parks between. This helps with NIMBYism and combined with the already large amount of green space left in Chinese cities such systems can be built with the only real concern being the engineering itself. But China is also in a good position for that, as their workforce is incredibly well educated with more engineering talent than they can even fully employ domestically. All that PLUS the political will of a single party state meant it was a very different situation than California.
And that's before you even consider ridership, where even the best possible SF to LA route would still pretty much require you to get a car or taxi once you get to LA (because LA was basically torn down and redesigned for cars).
China wants unity, even in places where it doesn't make economic sense.
edit: 100% downvotes are coming from people that don't know the situation. The CCP wants fast travel to major population centers even when the rail line isn't profitable.
I mean it’s different in about every aspect. Each county and city law has to be followed and land bought and fought about. Yes Elon maybhave halted but the project was so grossly under priced and the delays with Covid.
Not excusing but let’s see the clear differences
E: I’m not defending hyperloop or Musk in anyway. I’m saying it’s ridiculous to compare California and China where communist party controls every aspect of life. Surprisingly, California isn’t communist China, where here governments differ and laws are different and labor isn’t the same. Also local governments can fight back and have in multiple counties with law suits, along with budget changes.
This is really fucking obtuse take and should compare the US as a whole, especially when Obama wanted more rails. But surprisingly law suits and lobbyists challenged it hell