Passengers aren't supposed to have to change trains, and the state is barred from paying operating subsidies to the rail line. Those and many other provisions are written into state law.
Earlier this year, after construction costs ballooned to an estimated $98 billion, Brown slashed $30 billion from the project's budget. To save money, the project was reconfigured into what is called a "blended" rail system, in which the bullet train would share tracks with commuter rail systems on the San Francisco Peninsula and in the Los Angeles basin.
In an apparent attempt to attract support, the governor's measure included about $2 billion for transit improvements for San Francisco's Muni system, BART, Caltrain and Los Angeles' Metrolink service.
The lawsuit contends that the latest version of the project is so fundamentally different from what voters authorized that it should not be allowed to proceed.
The bullet train is supposed to be electric-powered, but as the project is now devised, it doesn't provide for electrification, the lawsuit claims.
State spending isn't supposed to begin until after the project obtains its environmental permits. But the project hasn't gotten its permits and instead faces multiple environmental lawsuits, the complaint says.
Meanwhile, the shared-tracks plan will slow the bullet train to the extent that it won't be able to meet its travel time requirement, the suit says, and passengers probably will have to change trains twice between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The lawsuit also contends that the project will not meet its promised completion date of the year 2020 and is likely to require "hundreds of millions" of dollars in subsidies.
Kopp said he was disappointed that there were no plans to electrify the Central Valley segment. Planners wanted to start construction in the Valley because it's a good place "to test the trains at 220 miles per hour," Kopp said.
Without electrification, trains can't attain that speed, he said.
"It's not what I fought for," Kopp said of the project. "It's a different system, and therein lies legal problems."
Bee staff writer Tim Sheehan contributed to this report. California Watch is a project of the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. For more, visit californiawatch.org. This story resulted from a partnership among California news organizations following the state's high-speed rail program, including The Fresno Bee, The Sacramento Bee, California Watch, The Bakersfield Californian, The Orange County Register, the San Francisco Chronicle, The (Riverside) Press-Enterprise, U-T San Diego, KQED, the Merced Sun-Star, The Tribune of San Luis Obispo and The Modesto Bee.
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