125MPH is the max speed of the train. It runs the route at an average of 67mph, end to end.

Adult tickets start at $79 for a 235 mile ride.

That’s about $0.33/mile, which is cheaper than driving with only two people in the car. With three, it’s cheaper to drive.

Ridership is over 2 million per year, which seems good. (Ten years at that ridership means the track construction cost $300 per passenger trip though. No idea how much maintenance has cost.)

However, overseas, the older trains are averaging well over 100mph, and the new workhorse trains routinely run faster than 200 mph.

For a train and tracks completed in 2013, I’d expect the 235 mile trip (6 stops; say, 4 minutes per stop: 235 mph top speed) to take about 90 minutes; 100 minutes figuring in time to accelerate and decelerate 6 times.

It takes 3.5 hours. That’s probably slower than a car.

Also, according to wikipedia, the system is incredibly unsafe (by train standards).

This is very similar to the Mission Valley leg of the San Diego trolly. This was the first trolly project developed in modern San Diego, and connected hotels to the "charger statium". Supposedly to allow tourist to go to football games from their hotel. Then, the chargers ditched San Diego and moved to LA 8-/

Meanwhile, El Cajon Blvd, which mostly parallels the route of that Mission Valley trolly route, but goes through residential and business areas and connects the city core to SDSU continues to have no trolly. In spite of the fact that this was a major trolley route back in the day when US cities originally had trolleys.

Ironically, that original Mission Valley trolley route now connects to SDSU, but doesn't travel through the most densly packed part of the city.