[DistrictDirt]

I'm a big believer in Elon Musk. I've invested heavily in Tesla and will do so with SpaceX whenever it finally goes public. I think the guy has vision and the drive to accomplish it.

That being said, he's made some pretty ignorant comments lately poo-pooing California's High Speed rail project. Talk is cheap, and its easy to say that something that's currently just an untested concept in his mind is going to be so much better and cheaper than what is already planned for California.

The thing is, infrastructure projects are expensive in America period, and his hyperloop - if ever built, won't be immune from that. There's eminent domain costs, tons of safety regulations, strict engineering tolerances, union labor, lawsuits, etc. His project would have to jump through all the same hoops that CAHSR is currently jumping through- all of which makes the costs balloon.

It pisses me off because the CAHSR project is already on thin ice and has lost popularity in voters eyes. If there was another referendum on the ballot it could get yanked completely, and it would be decades before the project got started again. Musk has no business making comments to help derail a real-world project that is actually happening for an untested, conceptual, more-expensive-than-he-thinks-it-will-be project that only exists in his brain.