If, for example, the proposition was instead about restoring the extent of service of the red cars in Los Angeles, it would be something really useful to millions of people, and would improve the perception of transit in the United States as a whole, but a boondoggle like CAHSR will only tarnish the idea
Not that flying or driving SFO LAX doesn't suck but there's substantially less people driving that way every day than the amount of people commuting inside of Los Angeles every day