High Speed Rail. U.S. comes in Last

[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.