Allegedly.

> But there is an enormous amount of reflexive opposition from NIMBYs, Conservatives, and Libertarians.

The greatest obstacles to California's high speed rail project are vote-buying politicians and the voters who do not pay attention or understand what they are doing.

Conservatives and libertarians may have a lot to say about it, I gather that's because it has been such a colossal money pit boondoggle affair; but you may have noticed that conservatives and libertarians don't exactly hold a political majority in California, so I doubt that their objections are a major obstacle to its completion.

The plans they actually began to build with won't even produce much of a service, the target speeds are disappointing and there are so many detours from any meaningful corridor; and we haven't even seen the reality of it yet, which will probably be even more disappointing than the low expectations.

> ...Republicans have killed the projects to replace them _twice_ simply because they are rail projects and passenger rail is 'bad'

Well, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that was probably not why they excluded that project from the budget.