If you’re old enough, you might remember the 2009 stimulus package, and all the speeches and promises about how with a bit of federal funding, high-speed rail was going to change the way we travel.

Nearly all of the states selected for such rail projects (Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida) turned down the federal money, reasoning that no amount of it was worth embarking on such a project that was so unlikely to prove useful for travelers. At the time, people attributed this to partisanship, as Republican governors made the decision to reject them.