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So it can work well in a continent, but not a country the size of a continent. A country that has several high population density centers that actually lend themselves perfectly to high speed rail."Europe" is not a country.
We can also have amazing high speed rail. This is the reason we can't have nice things. It's insane how much this stuff costs here.
Amtrak up the east coast (DC-Boston) is profitable. The rest is a massive black hole, though.
Aren't interstate freeways money pits as well? Some of us don't think of infrastructure investments as having to be profitable in order to make sense.
This is an excellent point.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Sure they are. It is just deemed necessary for us to pay for it so that we can transport goods and travel freely around the country. I would argue that high speed rail would alleviate congestion on our freeways, reduce the need for airplane travel, and reduce carbon emmisions, and also is a worthwhile investment.
The thought isn't that it will only go 50 MPH. People are starting to pack themselves back on airplanes again, I see no reason why if we had legit high speed rail people wouldn't choose that.
I don't have any numbers to back this up, not sure they exist, but a lot of money is raised from these pass through cities on the interstate system. The small town I grew up in reaps a lot of business and therefore tax revenue from a retail and restaurant standpoint by the interstate exits and traffic and tourists that stop there. There are definitely at least some ancillary economic benefits from the interstate system.
I was definitely talking about passenger and no doubt freight rail is huge. And it's very fuel efficient compared to trucks. As is water freight, which we don't use enough.
Interstates have been and are wildly profitable since they were built in the 50s. I'm not sure where this argument comes from.
Various user fees and taxes most certainly do not cover the cost of building and maintaining interstates. Not even close in fact.
How about we just retrofit a lane or two each of our major interstates to allow autonomous, high speed, bumper to bumper travel of passenger cars that are equipped with whatever inter-auto communication system standard needed to keep this train safe?
Seems to be where we are eventually headed with auto technology, which sounds good to me.
Comes down to definitions of profitability. I look at what interstates provide and what the alternative cost for movement of people and good would be without them. That delta has to be massively positive. That's what I mean by profitable.
This is why I am not so hot on high speed rail any longer. Highway miles still take forever to build but where we cannot just take a lane or two building new lanes or even new highway miles is much cheaper. So much cheaper that we could spend quite a lot on the retrofit if needed or even wanted and still come out ahead.
There is a stretch of highway/interstate near me that has been under construction for 25 years. It causes a bottleneck that backs up traffic in each direction all day, every day, for 5-10 miles. It will supposedly be done in 2025. If someone closes a lane or two to retrofit it someone will blow something up and no jury here will convict them.
Ever been on I95 in Northern Virginia? That is a hundred mile bottleneck most of the time.
I obviously know nothing about Janice Winfrey but here's hoping she makes a good run of it. America will be a better place when the Democratic party purges itself of the Squad and their supporters. It is not a good situation to have people in power that hate the country.
The problem with going up against The Squad is they will be flush with campaign money, also the blessings of influential media like Rolling Stone.
There will be a lot of dark money also. That is the most dangerous in non-presidential elections.
It was cheaper than flying. Not by much. More of an adventure than anything with our kids. Have a sleeper car. It is like a 27 hour trip.
That makes a lot more sense now. Kids love trains. (Was wondering about Chicago….my mental Rolodex placed you in MN…..)
