No share of the high-speed rail pie for the Northeast?

Many of us Northeasterners were dismayed when the Obama administration unveiled its priorities for spending $8B on high-speed rail projects, and essentially left out the densest, most mass-transit-friendly region of the country. Never mind that California may be on the verge of collapse, and probably can't fulfill the state's financial share of building a new rail network any time in the next few decades--a train traveler in CA and FL will likely need a car when they reach their destination city anyway.

A recent Times Op-Ed dubs Amtrak's Acela a "Slug on the Tracks", and points out that we probably missed the easiest opportunity to prove that high speed rail can work in the US, by making the Acela (which links Boston, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, and DC, plus many smaller cities) truly high speed.

Letters in response to the Times make some good points about why this is easier said than done, but largely miss the point that this is still far easier than building a whole new infrastructure from scratch somewhere where there's less demand and less supporting infrastructure.

Even if you want to write off the Northeast Corridor, other spurs beyond BosWash could be fruitful. Northern New England, or either Upstate NY or Pittsburgh (either potentially linking to the Chicago area eventually), or even down to the Carolinas; all have merits and connect nicely to the existing corridor infrastructure and demand.

The cynic may say that the northeast is easily in the Democrats pocket, so better to spend elsewhere. But the choice of California as the biggest recipient should dispel that. Perhaps it's an effort to boost the states most hurt by the housing crash? They're the ones who also gained disproportionally from the bubble, so that makes little sense. It's just puzzling.