High speed rail cannot come close to replacing highways though. It deals with a fraction of the overall traffic that the highway system supports without near the flexibility. This is why even the countries that are making extensive use of high speed rail still have extensive highway systems.

Please note, I am in no way trying to imply that our current highway system works well, but that is a far different discussion.

I was not stating an opinion on whether it is reasonable to subsidize HSR; rather I was just pointing out the discrepancy between the claim in the comment here versus the multiply-sourced claims in the article.

Additionally, the HSR proposal explicitly promised not to require ongoing subsidies. I think that was foolish: HSR would have passed without making silly promises.