It is higher speed. It's just not the speed you think it is. And higher peak speed doesn't linearly translate to lower journey time, as you need to speed up and slow down at either end!

People aren't stupid, they can understand that a project can deliver more benefits than just the words in a project's name.

But you've got knowledgeable people patiently giving plain easy-to-digest descriptions on the benefits ... which are ignored entirely by those with a bigger platforms who boil it down to "do we really need the fast trains?"