U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood also came to tell LA city officials that the president will not be dissuaded by naysayers or those who think that the proposed high speed rail is not the next generation of transportation

“This is what we will leave to the next generation of Californians and to the country,'' LaHood stated.

Although Obama strongly supports the project, it has come under increasing scrutiny because of ever increasing cost and criticism of leadership.

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has projected the rail will generate about 30,000 construction jobs and hundreds of thousands of permanent jobs.

However, opponents say the cost of the project has substantially increased the amount put to voters in 2008 when they approved the sale of $9.95 billion in bonds to fund the early phases of the project.

Critics say the project’s cost which was originally set at $33.5 billion is now $100 billion, which neither the state or the federal government has to spend.

Sen. Doug LaMalfa, a Republican who represents a district stretching from just north of Sacramento to the Oregon border, has introduced a bill in the state Senate that would ask voters to reconsider the bonds, based on the most recent price tag for the project. He is also sponsoring a ballot initiative -- the ``Stop the $100 Billion Train to Nowhere Act,'' which is still awaiting title and language approval from the state Attorney General -- that would circumvent the Legislature.

California High Speed Rail Authority officials say the project would actually be less if it can be done faster.

Opponents also have attacked the plan for a proposal to build the first section of the more than 200 mile-per-hour train from Bakersfield to Merced, far from population centers anticipated to make up the bulk of the train's users.

Villaraigosa and other transportation officials now say that section should be built in conjunction with upgrades to regional rail systems in Los Angeles and San Francisco that can increase the speed of trains in order to connect with the Central Valley corridor. Those regional sections would not reach the 200-mile-per-hour speeds of traditional high-speed rail.

The High Speed Rail Act approved by voters in 2008 requires trains to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco at speeds of more than 200 miles-per-hour in under 2 1/2 hours, he said.