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| Re: Amtrak curviest streches (1357557) | |||
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Re: Amtrak curviest streches |
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Posted by WillD on Sat Jun 27 01:26:06 2015, in response to Re: Amtrak curviest streches, posted by Jersey Mike on Fri Jun 26 06:53:06 2015. Everybody knows the state doesn't have the $45 billion to spare and never will.But they do. They have cap and trade funds which will provide for the construction of the first two phases beyond the ARRA funding they've received to this point. Dedicated RoW HSR is not feasible in this country and it never will be. Why not? We've carved plenty of transportation ROWs out of the rural parts of the country and those areas have not seen inhabitation significantly increase in the last 40 years. Plenty of space to run a ROW for 220mph trains through once you clear the suburbs. Hell, they manage to find room in Europe and Japan, so we should have an easy time making dedicated high speed rail lines. BTW my "wet dream" is 110mph service on existing rights of way. Which is the very last thing any of the freight railroads want to hear of and thus the absolute worst prospect for any rail service improvement. Look at Illinois backing off the UP corridor improvements in favor of 220mph service between St Louis and Chicago. If you want high speed...fly. Airports work great, they really do. But they don't. Airline trips shorter than 350 miles result in inconvenient trips for passengers and a disproportionate amount of time spent in crowded terminal airspace. That is the exact market where true high speed rail works best, delivering door-to-door times equal to or faster than air travel. Responsible government spending instead of socialist make work boondoggle. If that's the case then one could only come to the conclusion you favor a 220mph true high speed rail line. Anything with an average speed below 125mph is a recipe for endless operating subsidies. At least a true high speed rail line stands a change at attracting a large enough market share to repay its construction costs. |
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