High Speed Rail. U.S. comes in Last

[tomhagen]

Corporations want you to believe rush hour on the highway is “freedom”

[brooklynite]

1. What do "corporations" have to do with it?

Setting aside the Government's unwillingness to invest in ANY infrastructure, the big obstacles to high speed rail are:

- Lack of property for HSR right of way (you can't re-purpose the NEC or other existing rail lines)

- Long distances between major cities (you'll never have HSR between Chicago and the west coast)

[cab67]

2. It has more to do with the US Dept of Transportation than anything else.

The earlier comment about right-of-way is a serious issue (and is a reason passenger rail has not been profitable beyond the Boston-DC corridor), but attempts to bring HSR even there met with a lot of USDT resistance based on concerns over safety.

That it's used safely in Europe and Japan (among other places) doesn't ever seem to register.

[GoneOffShore]

4. I recall posting about this last year and hearing the same tired arguments.

Eminent domain - yada, yada, yada.
Safety - yada, yada, yada.
NIMBY's - yada, yada, yada.

There is just no will in the US for HSR to happen and the automotive industry, along with airlines, have too much to lose.

[cab67]

5. It's not a tired argument.

It's a fact.

In the US, freight takes right of way above passenger rail. I once took Amtrak from Massachusetts to Chicago; twice, the train stopped in the middle of nowhere for two or three hours because freight trains were doing something or other down the track. Others who've done this had the same experience.

That particular problem would be a matter of changing the law, and I'd be all in favor of it. I would actually prefer to see passenger rail take a more prominent role in our transportation infrastructure.

The Department of Transportation's worry about safety is, in my opinion, overblown. But it's there. That has to be overcome.

There's also the matter of rail being slower than air travel without being cheaper, at least beyond the Northeast corridor. Estimates I've seen for California would have a train trip between LA and SF costing about 50% more than a flight between the same cities, and taking an hour longer. It it's going to work, rail will have to be competitive with air travel. I'm all ears for ideas how to make this happen.

Believe me - I'm all in favor of expanding HSR in the US. I rely on it when I travel to Europe, which I do fairly frequently. I love it. But the existing infrastructure (both legal and physical) requires a serious amount of overhaul.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread tomhagen.