AS HIGH-SPEED-RAIL projects across America have run into political trouble or been cancelled, California's—the largest and most ambitious—has continued to move forward. Proponents of fast trains hoped that a successful line in California could spur development elsewhere.

But now even California's plan is in jeopardy. Its ambition has been scaled back and its projected costs have increased. Even voters have turned on it. A new survey by USC-Dornsife and the Los Angeles Times found that if given a second chance to vote on the 2008 $9 billion bond issue that is funding the early stages of the project, 59% of survey respondents would vote it down.

Part of what's happened here is that high-speed rail, like almost everything promoted by President Barack Obama, has become an intensely partisan issue in America. Republican governors across the country have criticised high-speed projects and rejected federal money to fund rail development. Mr Obama, meanwhile, has redistributed the rejected money to states like California that are run by Democrats and are more receptive to high-speed rail.

All this makes sense. Mr Obama made high-speed-rail funding a big part of his 2008 stimulus package, and political scientists generally believe that a president weighing in on an issue polarises people's opinions about it. In California, 76% of Republicans now oppose the high-speed-rail project, compared to just 47% of Democrats.