This piece seems to concede all of the problems critics of CAHSR (notably Ezra Klein) bring up, and then argues they never should have been problems in the first place or begs their underlying questions. For instance, yes, it took forever for funding to get secured. That's part of the state capacity critique of CAHSR!
Or, for another example, yes, the current Central Valley routing is practically just as hard (per mile) as a direct I5 route which would actually serve the largest population centers in CA. But, the piece argues, this would leave "more than a million people" in the Central Valley underserved. Uh... and? The I5 route would have served over twenty million people.
Yeah, I had the exact same reaction to this that you did. One of Klein and Thompson’s primary arguments is that we are failing by letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. This article’s thesis seems to be ‘yeah but perfect is better than good, so we should do that.’
Or, for another example, yes, the current Central Valley routing is practically just as hard (per mile) as a direct I5 route which would actually serve the largest population centers in CA. But, the piece argues, this would leave "more than a million people" in the Central Valley underserved. Uh... and? The I5 route would have served over twenty million people.