High Speed Rail is going absolutely nowhere in the United States. From my perspective it looks like politicians, planners, anti-freeway activists and anyone else cheerleading HSR are all ignoring the issue of cost, as if the high price of this stuff is not a problem. These folks are out of touch with reality. HSR is a luxury version of ordinary commuter rail. Here in the United States we can't even figure out how to build ordinary commuter rail lines without costs exploding into the stratosphere. We also can't figure out how to build something like that without the process taking decades. It's bad enough how slow we are at building highways.
I don't understand the motivation to build a high speed rail line through the high desert cities and towns North of the San Gabriel mountains. That makes about as much sense as building a 20 lane wide freeway between Nome and Fairbanks.
Regarding the anti-freeway sentiment in California, it will be interesting to see if those attitudes are still the same 10 years from now. The real estate market in SoCal cities (and much of the US) could be a lot different. Interest rates are creeping up; higher borrowing costs could slow down and reverse that market. Ever rising health care costs, living costs, etc are pushing the US fertility rate into baby bust territory. Over the long term that's going to push real estate demand downward. People will down-size their living spaces. Homes & apartments will get smaller. Many jobs are going to be eliminated via automation, robotics & artificial intelligence. Ever faster broadband and mobile service will change how and where people work; fewer people will commute back and forth to a central office. These factors aren't good for mass transit platforms that only move people in large groups.
The automobile is poised to go roaring through another golden age once self-driving capable cars are sold widely to the public. Auto makers are even designing vehicles that have no steering wheel and run in fully autonomous fashion. That technology is going to be disruptive in ways we can't even predict. It's going to make a big dent in the enthusiasm for mass transit.
The one thing that always bugged me about the CA HSR plan was the almost complete lack of need assessment. Touted as the transportation system of the future, there were few if any published data regarding exactly
who the potential customers were -- or from where they would be drawn -- automobile travelers between L.A. and the Bay Area or from one or another of the airlines (mainly Southwest and Alaska) serving that corridor. It's just as likely that regular travelers between the areas already use the airlines, as they have near-saturation service from the various L.A.-area airports and the equivalent in the Bay Area; these would include business travelers as well as people visiting family, friends, or loved ones on a regular basis. Non-commercial automotive traffic is likely to be somewhat more sporadic -- the occasional trip for one or more of many purposes. If cargo (gifts, household items, etc.) need to be transported (and UPS or FedEx service is deemed not to be cost-effective), then automobile travel comes into play as well. And since the whole premise of HSR is daily multi-train service, to render it cost-effective those trains have to be full or close to it. But the logistics at either end make it something of a wash when it comes to competing with airports -- the traveler has to go to a station, park their car (unless given a ride, like with air travel), and go through the terminal process before boarding; this applies to
either mode. The time involved -- particularly given the fact that there will be a few urban stations along the single rail line, whereas the airports (particularly around L.A.) are dispersed around the metro area; a rail passenger from Orange County would either have to travel to Los Angeles or take local transportation (ostensibly Metrolink) to the HSR terminal whereas there's a local airport (John Wayne) with numerous daily flights to S.F., Oakland, and San Jose. HSR won't get folks off the road; initially it may get travelers who want the novelty, but even if it catches on, it'll primarily draw customers from air travel -- but, IMO, probably not enough to ensure cost coverage much less any hint of profitability.
As far as the E-W High Desert extension along the "E-220/High Desert" corridor, this is simply speculation assuming (a) that the main HSR line paralleling CA 14 will be completed as planned, and (b) the private Victorville-Vegas venture also reaches fruition. If both don't happen in the near-to-mid term, there won't be HSR in the median of the highway; something else (I'll reiterate my guess as to conventional rail) will be placed there.