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As for Rail Projects in the US they cost 4x what they cost in Europe do to regulations which are outdated and need to be done away with.... Get rid of those regions and you'll see prices drop , a Cali sized system would cost 35 Billion or the original cost. A Northeastern project would cost 60 Billion....
It will never get better, just worse. Government never shrinks. Just wait until the TSA gets it's hooks into rail travel...........
The problem here isnt so much the high speed rail itself but the public transit infrastructure at each end or at the stations, kinda pointless to pay to get from A-B and need taxi's or rentacars at both ends.
The high speed rail system may work in say the Washington/Boston Corridor but they already have the Metroliner that does 100+mph are enough people going to pay extra to go 200mph?
Or it may work in a NYC to Chicago type route but are enough people going to use it to pay for it.
Highspeed rail in America? A very expensive and unneeded giant boondoggle.
Correct.
Take Houston to Dallas, for example. Somebody living in Houston would have to drive their car to a central station just like they do to the airport, so that's typically 30 - 60 minutes. Then when the train arrives in Dallas, you have to rent a car since everybody is spread out. So, you would be much better off driving your own car 3 hours and avoiding the parking, lines, car rental hassles.
HSR works well in a few areas.... but will never work well in most of the US.
And only 60% of US gasoline taxes goes toward highways. The rest goes to other projects like mass transit. So automobile drives subsidize mass transit.
Has to be, mass transit riders are not willing to pay retail for their ride to work. One reason so many are opposed to single payer. It would be the public transportation of health care.
Because people in those countries don't enjoy their cars as we do here in America. Barring that, all of the cities who have put in light rail, wouldn't have to be pouring money into it, making it a money pit.
If people won't even ride light rail in their cities to and from work, what makes you think they will jump on a high speed rail?
I guess we can debate for some time on the merits and pitfalls of highspeed rail systems in the USA,
Info we need to know would be the specific routes and how much they will cost to build and will they be convenient enough and cheap enough to get the required ridership to justify paying for these rail lines.
And it needs to be decided if these high-speed lines are going to be all-new construction or merely upgrades of existing routes. I'm not speaking of the Northeast Corridor - I mean here in the Midwest and everywhere else.
I ask that question a lot and I am always met with a blank stare, like a deer in headlights.
HSR in most of the USA simply doesn't make sense, and a lack of density as it pertains to population is just one reason, not to mention ridership projections which are funnier than anything you've ever read in your life, such as the 35,000,000+ number being tossed about for the LA/SF route, aka the 'Governor Moonbeam Express'.
And it needs to be decided if these high-speed lines are going to be all-new construction or merely upgrades of existing routes. I'm not speaking of the Northeast Corridor - I mean here in the Midwest and everywhere else.
I ask that question a lot and I am always met with a blank stare, like a deer in headlights.
As far as i know high speed rail requires special seamless rails and concrete ties and banked hi-speed corners.,speeds up around 200mph+ just wont work on current RR infrastructure.
When the GM bailout issue came up, there was this very well-written article about Amtrak by an economist who used to work for them Is GM the New Amtrak? - The Daily Beast
When Amtrak was created (under Nixon) everyone involved asserted that it would be tax-subsidized initially, but eventually self-supporting. Now 38 years old, it shows no inclination to move out of tax-dad and tax-mom's home and go off on its own. At the time of this article (3 years ago) the taxpayer was subsidizing Amtrak to the tune of $85,000 per Amtrak employee.
The problem is not technological but the public-private structure. Any enterprise that is run by the gov't is going to be inherently inefficient, because decisions are made on the basis of politics rather than cost and profit.
All the people opposing it are generally not bright and forward thinking enough to realize our population is going to increase and we need more and better transportation options. They're the same type of ignorant luddite that thought our Interstate Highway System would be an expensive boondoggle that would just be a massive money drain when it has in fact been one of the most important engines in American commerce.
Too bad America's wealth isn't growing like the population is. Too bad our government has already borrowed so much money that interest rates must stay at zero, condemning entire generations to working until they die instead of someday retiring. Too bad that increasing taxes won't increase overall tax revenue, since professional people will only keep working (and feeding the income tax monster) as long as they have something left over after taxes and cost of living. And too bad simply printing fiat currency won't "create" wealth--all it does is remove buying power from barely-surviving earners and savers and handing it to Big Government.
While population may continue to explode, the economy (and people traveling to do business) continues to decline. More and more business is done over the internet, by phone, and by videoconferencing. There is absolutely no need for the incredibly expensive hi-speed rail and other mass transport systems that exist in places with extremely high densities, extremely high-taxes, and very low personal property ownership.
As for expensive pie-in-the-sky ideas, this one falls almost at the bottom of the list in terms of benefit versus cost.
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