It's a boondoggle. If you are concerned about public transportation, more busses is an affordable answer.
High Speed rail? As Chris Christie said, it's budget candy. It's not a serious project.
Jobs derailed:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/os-scott-rejects-rail-money-20110216,0,2863027.storyHere's the thing...High speed rail may not be the answer today. But in the future? Are we going to wait until the interstates are so full nobody goes anywhere? (Well, they probably won't. Everyone in the state will be unemployed if Scott sticks around.) How many thousands of jobs will be lost by him turning down this money? Does he have jobs out there to cover? Maybe with his pill mill buddies? Too many Republicans are so short-sighted they only look at today and have no comprehension what tomorrow will bring.
I’m glad Scott wasn’t around during the Eisenhower years. We wouldn’t have any interstates today.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/profiles-from-the-recession/blog-futurama-obamas-fight-for-rail-no-different-from-eisenhowers-for-highways/1166/(Contains an amazing video!)
Glad to see the WSJ was as short-sighted back then as they are today...
Congress seemed to turn against the program, as representatives began to make speeches on the floor blaming a shortage of government funds on unnecessarily wasteful highway budgets. The Wall Street Journal was quoted in 1960 as describing the interstate highway system as “[a] vast program thrown together, imperfectly conceived and grossly mismanaged, and in due course becoming a veritable playground for extravagance, waste and corruption.”