No. The LA-SF connection was THE connection to make for a number of good reasons:

-HSR is a direct replacement for short-haul airlines. The LAX-SFO corridor is one of if not THE busiest air corridors on earth, and CAHSR is going to put a tremendous dent in it.

-There’s not really any easy way to get from California’s interior (the central valley cities like Bakersfield, Merced, Fresno, etc that everyone likes to dunk on for not being LA or San Francisco) to LA or San Francisco. Basically, your only options are a shitty drive or a shitty bus, though the Amtrak San Joaquins and ACE extension line can at least get you to the bay area if you can access them. CAHSR makes it much easier for people in California’s interior to visit the metro area’s without becoming traffic, and makes it easier for folks in the metro area’s to visit the central valley in case they uh… Um… Want to see a cow? Oh, go to Yosemite or Sequoia national parks, yeah, that.

-Brightline West is NOT real High Speed Rail. Brightline is sort of at the high end of Mid-Speed Rail, which is still not bad, we could really do with a lot more of it for longer haul passenger service and intercity service where HSR doesn’t make sense. But they operate below the official HSR speeds in order to dodge a lot of really expensive FRA regulations. CAHSR can’t do that because it has to be a true replacement for the air route, which means that cost overruns are going to happen.

-The first true HSR project in the US was always going to be insanely expensive. California took the hit on this, but hopefully the knowledge, experience, and supply chains the CAHSRA creates will get picked up by other HSR projects in the states who can leverage it to build their projects cheaper.