Really only makes sense in the Northeast Corridor from DC to Boston which does have somewhat high speed rail.
Really only makes sense in the Northeast Corridor from DC to Boston which does have somewhat high speed rail.
It's kind of hard to embrace a fast moving train. Now, if it is parked...
One of the biggest obstacles which hasn't been mentioned already is property rights. The US can't just take land like China can. Another problem is that nobody wants to pay for it. One solution would be having some Chinese or Japanese company come in, buy out Amtrak and rebuild.
10/10
High speed rail is only valuable if people have the ability to leave their cars at home to use it. The east coast is ready for this but most of the rest of the country sadly lacks in a convenient means of getting from point a to point b without a car.
California is trying to build high speed rail pitching the idea that it will decrease traffic on major highways. It's total BS. except for traveling from the central valley to the SF bay area, most of the traffic in california is concentrated around major cities, not going from city to city. High speed rail will do nothing to fix this. California also has some of the worst public transportation networks within their cities.
I don't know what the cost of high speed rail would be but when southwest has sales, you can get up and down the west coast for less than $100 in way less time than it take to fly.
California is one of worst places for high speed rail. You have basically two major cities with nothing much in between. If high speed rail was built it would still be cheaper and faster to take a plane between San Francisco and Los Angeles than to take a train.
The oil companies, auto companies, and even the tire companies all conspired decades ago to make sure Americans were driving cars.
Lets see, they can't keep the Amtrak trains on the tracks and you expect them
to make high speed trains?
The biggest impediment is political i.e. lobbyists for the airline industry, oil industry , auto industry etc. So if you want change then support campaign finance reform.
There are numerous routes in America where high speed rail would make sense. Americans are already commuting huge distances to go to work. For example there are thousands of people commuting from Albany to New York and back several times week via Armtrak or via road
There are people commuting from South bend to Chicago etc etc
All these are commutes that take 2 or 2.5 hours. A hi speed train would complete the journey in 1 hour and raise productivity.
Aside from raising productivity, it would also decongest airports roads, burn less fossil fuel
You can make a sound economic and environmental argument for high speed trains in several corridors in America. But our political system will not allow it.
Again support campaign finance reform and you will get politicians who vote their conscience and not what the lobbyists want.
Blah Blah. wrote:
California is one of worst places for high speed rail. You have basically two major cities with nothing much in between. If high speed rail was built it would still be cheaper and faster to take a plane between San Francisco and Los Angeles than to take a train.
Firstly Cali has more than just two major cities. In fact it has more major cities than any other state.
Secondly explain how hi speed rail would be slower than driving.
LA, SF, SD and...........?
Whaaat? wrote:
Firstly Cali has more than just two major cities. In fact it has more major cities than any other state.
Secondly explain how hi speed rail would be slower than driving.
Derrick Rose and his buddies just got in some trouble for a high-speed train.
First, some history ...
There was a time in America when passenger trains were exceeding 100 mph, pulled by steam locomotives over jointed rail. This was during the 1930's. If this trend had been allowed to continue, it is conceivable that we'd still have private passenger trains today travelling at greater-than-highway speeds across the country, filling that niche between the convenience of the automobile and the speed of flight. The advantage of railroads in this niche would be that a train (unlike buses or jet airplanes) can essentially be a "hotel on wheels", allowing the roominess, comfort, and amenities of a hotel, while at the same time getting people to where they want to go in a reasonable time frame.
But like so many other private institutions that have been ruined by Progressives, the feds stepped in and decided that all trains should be limited to an arbitrary 79 mph unless they employed ATS (automatic train stop). This effectively put the kibosh on private high speed trains in the US, with the exception being the Northeast Corridor where the Pennsylvania, New York Central, and New Haven railroads could justify the expense of ATS with their commuter business.
A significant result of this 79 mph max is that it no longer made sense for the freight railroads to try to maximize their profits via speedy service, so they shifted their profit motive away from the concept of fast freight and more toward bigger heavier (and consequently slower) trains. To accommodate this shift in focus, the railroads had to get rid of speed-related functions such as super-elevated curvature, since the heavier slower freight cars tended to cause the rails on super-elevated curves to bend out of alignment or spread. So curves were flattened, which helped to keep the freight cars on the rails but also caused average speeds to fall.
As much as historians like to blame the Interstate highway system and the advent of jet airliners for the demise of private passenger rail - or more to the point, the demise of fast trains regardless of if they were carrying freight or passengers - the truth is quite a bit more involved.
Costas fan wrote:
. . . Move on to Harambe or some other "humorous" meme of more recent vintage. Nothing longer than five seconds, though, or you'll lose the millennials.
Ooh, ooh, how about this: "millenials can't pay attention to anything for longer than five seconds."
How's that for a new "humorous" meme?
I would love this. Part of the answer is that Republicans are owned by oil and road construction companies. They instinctively oppose trains. In states and cities, you have to get on the ballot a special tax for mass transportation, whereas unending dollars are devoted to road construction through existing gas taxes and other monies, so that it is automatic to get more unwanted roads but even when the fed is giving out billions for trains, know-nothing governors like Scott Walker and Rick Scott turn the money down, so no rail through Florida or Wisconsin.
This is completely false. Check out this article. California is the most urbanized state in the country and has 7 of the top 10 most densely populated cities. Many of them are between SF and LA, the biggest of which is San Jose. Check out the map. Also, density in American cities is often actually comparable to European cities in which there is a great deal of public transportation. For instance, compare cities like Tampa to Berlin, where density is not much greater there, but there are almost no trains in Tampa (there are a few Amtrak trains and there is a tourist tram that goes a short distance) and S-bahns, U-Bahns, trams, regional, and intercity trains all over the place, plus buses. A number of parts of Miami are among the most dense locations in the country, comparable to the New York area and far denser than places like Berlin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_densityhttp://www.governing.com/blogs/by-the-numbers/california-cenus-population-density-urbanized-areas-cities.html
Blah Blah. wrote:
California is one of worst places for high speed rail. You have basically two major cities with nothing much in between. If high speed rail was built it would still be cheaper and faster to take a plane between San Francisco and Los Angeles than to take a train.
Make America irate again wrote:
It's estimated that a train will take me 4 hours from Seattle to Portland. But driving will take me 3 hours. This should be the other way around.
Merica, why no European style high speed train network?
Seems like a good reason to embrace driving.
Not only does it take you 3 hours vs. 4, but you still have to get to the train station, board the train, get off the train and then get to your final destination.
With a car, you leave your door and head straight to your destination.
On a shorter trip a high speed train doesn't make sense.
On a longer trip, take a plane.
Whaaat? wrote:
Blah Blah. wrote:California is one of worst places for high speed rail. You have basically two major cities with nothing much in between. If high speed rail was built it would still be cheaper and faster to take a plane between San Francisco and Los Angeles than to take a train.
Firstly Cali has more than just two major cities. In fact it has more major cities than any other state.
Secondly explain how hi speed rail would be slower than driving.
People are driving because they need a car at the other end. If they don't need a car or they are in a hurry they will fly.
Look at the cost of the normal Amtrak train VS the Acela train from DC to NY. $89 vs ~$169-260.
I can fly cheaper to NY than take Acela and it gets there 2 hours quicker.
high speed to nowhere wrote:
Let's see: TGV for example, consumes power than a small city, creates landscape blight, in some cases divides the land ("the other side of the railway tracks"), lives off of government subsidies (moreso than Deutsche Bahn, differs a lot by country), largely only has self-defined "important" cities on the line (politics of excluding others), ...
In other words, because USA hasn't turned that stupid (yet).
cute, but ridiculously inaccurate.