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This.
The only problem comes with who gets what and how much. But I guess the solution would be to give it to those cities that need it such as cities w/ budding light rail options and cities in need of heavy rail expansion for greater infrastructure. Atlanta is a good example. 5 mil + people, yet hasn't expanded much since it opened in the 60's... Well, there's also the issue with bickering amongst counties... But that will change with time
Right, bickering amongst counties and lack of a dedicated revenue stream from outside the municipal level will do that.
Why do we need high-speed rail? Why spend billions of dollars on this when we can fly or drive across the country? To be "cool" like France or Japan (which are MUCH smaller countries than the US)? It doesn't make sense.
This is much needed in this country. The oil supply is not unlimited and by moving some air travel and long distance road travel to high speed rail it will contribute greatly to reducing our dependence on oil. Now only if we could move freight transportation back to rail instead of 18-wheelers. That would be a HUGE savings and would save everybody a great deal of money at the pump.
HSR like any other spend requires forthought and development of where it makes sense. We have a very good airport infrastructure and a large country. HSR makes sense in some areas more than others. Places (larger) within 300-400 miles are areas where it makes the most sense and there are areas where other infrastructure make sense. There is no one size fits all answer within this vast country and some things do make more sense sense than others but to throw the idea away is silly and one good aspect is that the development does add to the economy via jobs and hopsfully some US manufacturing of the things required to build it...
Definitely makes sense. In this huge geographical country, a one size fits all approach won't work. To discount HSR because you don't understand it or think its a waste is definitely bad.
This is much needed in this country. The oil supply is not unlimited and by moving some air travel and long distance road travel to high speed rail it will contribute greatly to reducing our dependence on oil. Now only if we could move freight transportation back to rail instead of 18-wheelers. That would be a HUGE savings and would save everybody a great deal of money at the pump.
The other issue is always assuming we would need the oil for such things as well in the future.
Good posts so far. Other areas outside the Northeast Corridor that would make sense are San Diego to San Francisco (and possibly up to Sacramento), the Pacific Northwest (at least Portland to Vancouver, BC), the Piedmont Crescent, and possibly a line in the Midwest centered on Chicago that runs through the Twin Cities, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis--or if we do something really interesting, a midwestern rail connection to Canada's Windsor/Quebec City corridor via Detroit.
Another time/cost saving for HSR in comparison to airplanes is the possibility of going from city center to city center. It is incredibly convenient to go by rail in the northeast corridor because you are let off in the middle of the city and with easy access to local public transit from the get-go. This means trips to other cities in the corridors means that commuting to the outskirts of a city (as airports must be located there) to get on a plane and then landing and having to commute from the next city's outskirts into the city center can be completely avoided. Moreover, it's possible to not have to rent a car or spend much on taxis if you're going from city center to city center.
Also, plugged ears are annoying.
I agree. When you say Piedmont Crescent are you just refering to the crescent in NC (from Raleigh to Charlotte) or are you talking about the region stretching from Birmingham through to Raleigh? This area is better known as the Piedmont Atlantic region or Charlanta. The Peidmont Crescent is the string of urban areas in the middle of NC. Other than that clarification I definitely agree with this post.
Another time/cost saving for HSR in comparison to airplanes is the possibility of going from city center to city center. It is incredibly convenient to go by rail in the northeast corridor because you are let off in the middle of the city and with easy access to local public transit from the get-go. This means trips to other cities in the corridors means that commuting to the outskirts of a city (as airports must be located there) to get on a plane and then landing and having to commute from the next city's outskirts into the city center can be completely avoided. Moreover, it's possible to not have to rent a car or spend much on taxis if you're going from city center to city center.
That's a mixed blessing. For some cities that are still oriented around their downtowns, that's great. But there are plenty of cities where the huge number of people flying into and out of the city have no interest in going anywhere near downtown, and in many cases would rather avoid the congestion and difficulty of getting in and out of it.
Also, it would be ridiculously cheaper to just build a direct rail connection from every single major airport to every single respective downtown area than it would be to build a separate intercity HSR network to acheive this goal.
This is much needed in this country. The oil supply is not unlimited and by moving some air travel and long distance road travel to high speed rail it will contribute greatly to reducing our dependence on oil. Now only if we could move freight transportation back to rail instead of 18-wheelers. That would be a HUGE savings and would save everybody a great deal of money at the pump.
Did you read the article I linked earlier? The US already has the very best freight rail network in the world. It's extremely widely used--far more than Europe's.
And this infatuation with buying up frieght corridors and converting them into passenger lines poses a huge threat to this system.
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