High-speed rail is not that suitable for USA tbh. Instead of blindly copying other countries/regions like Europe, Japan and now China for rail projects, USA needs to examine why these rail projects worked for these countries/regions. It's because these countries/regions all have two things in common, high population over densely packed areas so it's more efficient to build networked transportation structures to move those massive populations in a systematic manner like trains whereas United States neither has the high density of population nor are they located in concentrated hub areas so why it makes more sense for the United States to construct highways to serve its sprawling population huddled in pockets of suburbs especially when the United States culture has always favoured more individual freedom of movement in private cars vs. in public transportations such as trains in Europe, Japan and China. So why reinvent the wheels to change something that's worked for decades when all it needed to do is just maintain and improve the infrastructure that's already existing? Instead of spending billions and maybe hundreds of billions of dollars to build high-speed rails that noboby's going to use, why not improve upon the existing structure to meet the demands of today? If the aim is to reduce the carbon footprint, why not invest to add more electric charging station, solar-paneled signs along the highway and even better develop hydrogen fuel cell cars? Or to improve road condition of the highway to make it more fuel efficient? And if one really wants to develop public transportation, instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars to copy others to build high-speed rail, why not use the existing highway structure to invest in luxury greyhound buses? How about overnight greyhound hotel buses with sleeping quarters like this in Park 'n' Ride stations so people from sprawling suburbs can drive to these greyhound bus stations, park their car and ride the overnight buses to wherever they want to go and then ride back on the buses, get their car back and ride home? So that way, you use the existing road infrastructure and still reach the carbon emission goals? Of course we have a president that has no imagination and no competence so it's too much to ask for him to look at innovative resolutions to reach new goals using existing infrastructure instead of blindly copying other countries and regions' technology. It's a good thing that we are debating and debating and debating and scrutinizing very carefully over how we spend our budget as well as the environmental impact of what we build instead of hastily building whatever we think to reach some kind of lofty goals and end up building ghost structures like these:
Many times I have heard these arguments from politicians --particularly Republicans; it's "common wisdom", but it's wrong. High Speed rail makes even more sense for cheaply moving mail, freight, and people as distances to be traveled increase. It makes just as much sense for moving some types of mail and freight as it does for moving people. The Reason the U.S. doesn't have High Speed Rail has nothing to do with it not being practical. It's because U.S. airlines and the U.S. automobile industry don't want it.
If you just want freight, there are freight trains and high-speed rail is not typically used for freight; it's used predominately for moving people. I will let you do more research about that. And moving mail? Seriously? What century are you living in? When was the last time that you actually mailed a letter to someone?? To use high-speed rail to move mail is like killing a mosquito with hypersonic weapons. Like I said, high-speed rail is not for everyone and it has nothing to do with some industries' lobby. Airlines and automobiles are irreplaceable. All of the countries and regions that have highly developed high-speed rail still have highly active airline industries as well as trucking and automobile industries that have no fear of being replaced. To say high-speed rail development is politically motivated, that I agree with you. Whoever is touting the project is really using high-speed rail projects to score political brownie points at the expense of taxpayers.
Kudos to @TheDawn and @vicbee and a few others on this thread. Finally an intellectual discussion on ET that didn't spiral into an immature pissing match.
Because we don't do something now is not a reason to not do it in the future. tons of mail (not just letters) are flown each day. Sending that mail by high speed rail could cut the cost by a substantial amount without any significant delay in delivery time in most instances. High speed rail is used for both freight and people. We don't use it because we don't have it. If you stand on the platform in Japan or Europe where HSR is being loaded you'll see lots of boxes in addition to people. Its super energy efficient and fast. To make High speed rail economical it needs heavy use. It is a waste to restrict it to moving people, and it's a waste to fly mail (including parcel post). Ideally, this stuff should all go between distribution centers by high speed rail with very little of it flown. Almost all of present day air freight could be shipped by HSR. The weight requirements for freight shipped by high speed rail are are similar to those needed for air shipment. Not all freight, e.g., very large or Heavy freight, is suitable because High Speed trains are lightly constructed, and like aircraft built out of light alloys. Much of the freight that ships by air now is a candidate for shipping by HSR.
The future of communication is not by letters. There are letters being written today still but it's getting less and less. Why are we spending more $$ to build something to transport things that are getting less in volume. That does not make sense. And we have a perfectly good system to move freight right now. We don't need to spend more money to re-invent the wheel. So your argument for building high-speed rail to move just freight and soon to be obsolete letter mail is moot. To build high-speed rail to move people makes more sense but our population density and the location of them do not merit any economical or environmental savings. Like I said, makes more sense to just improve the current highway infrastructure now to make it more economically and environmentally efficient instead of blindly copying other countries or regions. The United States is not Japan nor is it Europe. Why does it have to do everything like them?
Lets not get hung up on a word. Just think of mail as anything that could conceivably land in a personal or business mailbox or on a doorstep or in the receiving dept..... Anything delivered by a delivery service, USPS, UPS, Fedex, etc. , with an address. Lets call that mail. I don't see packages going away anytime soon, do you? The best thing about being last to do something is you don't have to make the same mistakes everyone that's ahead of you made. When we build out HSR, we will avoid the mistake others made of thinking initially that HSR was only for passengers. Our HSR will be designed from day one to accommodate both passengers and light freight. That doesn't mean they have to be on the same train, but they could be. The important thing is to take advantage of being last by observing the mistakes of others that preceded us. We will create an HSR system that accommodates our rapidly growing need for shipping and our desire to get out of our cars and let someone else drive, meanwhile cutting down on fossil fuel use. We could build the world's best HSR system. We are in the position to do that.
The best thing about being last to do something is you don't have to make the same mistakes everyone that's ahead of you made. When we build out HSR, we will avoid the mistake others made of thinking initially that HSR was only for passengers. Our HSR will be designed from day one to accommodate both passengers and light freight. That doesn't mean they have to be on the same train, but they could be. The important thing is to take advantage of being last by observing the mistakes of others that preceded us. We will create an HSR system that accommodates our rapidly growing need for shipping and our desire to get out of our cars and let someone else drive, meanwhile cutting down on fossil fuel use. We could build the world's best HSR system. We are in the position to do that.[/QUOTE] We don't need high-speed rail. Why waste the money to build it? So many different places that we can spend taxpayers' money, like public education, affordable housing, public health, abused substance control and drug trafficking, combatting organized crime...
Because we need something to replace the damned flying cars! Where are the flying cars!! It's all about the software I guess.