Not really. You might want to reconsider the snark.
The Acela has been around for a decade or so, but due to track limitations can’t go as fast as it would otherwise be capable of. Even so, it has managed to capture a mjority of travelers away from airplanes on the NY to DC route.
Then we already have it then dont we (or dont we?)
Next corridor please.
Does that mean that we should build high-speed rail on the next corridor, or that you are demoting your argument (we don’t have it so we must not need it) to the next corridor?
Straightening the right of way to allow higher speeds would involve a very serious amount of money for land acquisition in such a densely-built area. That is going to be a problem anywhere the plan involves something other than upgrading existing ROW’s.
But air is free.
The managed to do it in many other countries. France, Germany and Japan are FAR more densely populated than the US.
I know! Stupid, right? 
Well…a couple of things here. First off, the US is not Europe/Japan. It would be a bit harder for the government to get the necessary tracts of land (silent HUGE tracts of land!), despite eminent domain. Secondly, much of the infrastructure you are talking about in France, Germany and Japan were begun decades ago, and already in place for decades…they have certainly been expanded, but they didn’t have to build them from scratch last year, thus they did so when things were less densely populated. Additionally, the US has spent that same period of time building up our transport infrastructure…which none of those countries had to the extent the US did back when they started building it. Thus it was easier to accept in France/Germany/Japan at the time than it would be for American’s to accept today. Also, you make a good point…those countries ARE more densely populated in a more concentrated area than the US is…which additionally makes HSR much more practical there than it did/does here (for wide scale use…I agree that on a limited basis it could be practical here between some major population centers).
The thing is, we already have a transport infrastructure here…attempting to build another one would be redundant IMHO. It would be very costly, it would be full of compromises on track layout (I don’t think there is any way in hell you’d get the proper terrain to enable the really fast HSR system they have in Europe or Japan…so we’d get a lower speed compromise system), it would take years to build, and ultimately it wouldn’t be utilized enough to make it worth the cost, time or effort to build, by and large.
Guess we’ll find out though, ehe? If Obama is going to really pour money into this we should actually see the results…which will (in theory at least) put this question to rest on the 'dope once and for all…
I’m not going to hold my breath on that though. 
-XT
So in other words, a high-speed rail line on the East Coast wouldn’t work because it’s too densely populated, and besides, it’s not densely enough populated to make it worthwhile.
They couldn’t do it in Canada. Thats’s why our ‘high speed’ rail only went 90-110 mph. We had to run it on existing rail.
The minute you try to lay new track you’re going to run into a political firestorm. Are you going to use eminent domain and just start taking land and bulldozing houses? Every neighborhood the train goes through is going to fight it. It’ll get tied up in lawsuits and be very expensive. Many other countries have discovered this problem, which is why it’s so hard to lay new train track today.
They may have managed it in Europe and Japan, but the culture is different, the laws are different, and the need may have been greater and caused people to accept the change.
Air is not only free, but it’s flexible. This is the biggest thing for me. In the 21st century, change happens quickly. Technologies are changing faster and faster. The culture is changing constantly. Capital flows globally, and jobs move around. We’re still transitioning from an industrial age to an information age. We really don’t know much about how people will want to travel in 20 years. Perhaps with advances in the internet and teleconferencing and virtual reality there will be an ‘office collapse’ ten years from now, and people will flee their city offices the way people fled the countryside for the cities at the start of the industrial revolution.
This is not the environment where you want build hundreds of billions of dollars worth of high speed rail lines based on today’s traffic flows. What you want is a transportation system that’s mutable - that can change with the changing needs of the population. Especially when that train infrastructure is only marginally more efficient than the alternatives, and the alternatives are gaining in efficiency every year.
In ten years, we could have cars that average 75 MPG, and airplanes that fly on biofuel. In that environment, it’ll be the trains that are the least environmentally-conscious mode of passenger transportation. But you’ll be stuck with them.
I’m reminded of France’s Minitel system - another grand, centrally-planned infrastructure ‘investment’ that was going to leapfrog France into the future. Then the internet came along, and France was stuck with its giant white elephant that no one wanted any more, but which the government kept pushing on the people. It caused France to lag behind the rest of the world in internet adoption for quite some time.
Damn, thats funny! And as well all know, nobody will use it anyway because it will be too crowded. 
Um…no. That’s not even a rough approximation of what I said. First of, I didn’t categorically say it wouldn’t work in all cases. Secondly, I said that I doubt you’d get the right of ways necessary for true HSR, and instead you’d get a compromise system that would not go as fast or as efficiently. Thirdly, I don’t think population density would be the major factor in the over all failure…it would be usage. A new HSR system would have to compete with the current infrastructure that is already in place…the air and car network. Unless there is a MAJOR advantage to the new rail system in terms of cost or time (which I’m not seeing there being a major advantage in either over the current systems) then at best it will simply be another option for travelers to use. At worst it will be a heavily subsidized niche travel system that is under utilized for the cost and effort needed to put it in.
-XT
If we’re dismissing the German, French, and Japanese successes as irrelevant due to differing political and economic conditions, can we also dismiss the Canadian failures?
You can, of course, do as you please. I would like to point out (again) that this isn’t what I said. I’m not ‘dismissing the German, French, and Japanese successes as irrelevant due to differing political and economic conditions’…this does not characterize what I said and so is a strawman of what I actually DID write.
-XT
Are there no new airports built in the US due to the traffic increase? A third airport will be built in the Paris area after Charles de Gaules and Orly airports. The two of them, although huge, can’t handle the traffic anymore. Well, that was before the crisis.
I only say “Ronald Reagan National Airport”. Every take off and landing is heard and felt in Georgetown, not really a poor neighborhood.
I don’t think Sam is talking about the noise of the trains there.
-XT
Why does it have to be a MAJOR advantage? If I want to get from Point A to Point B, and rail is slightly better for that purpose than flying (where “better” is defined in some way based on cost, time, and whatever other factors I consider important), then I’m going to choose rail. It’s not like I have some sort of investment in air travel, that the rail companies will have to give me some major incentive to switch.
Allow me to make a few predictions:
(1) It will not work out anywhere near as well as its proponents claim. That’s just reality in a democratic system. Political compromises will have to be made with local governments; with local property owners; with unions; with lobbyists for competing industries; and so on.
(2) For the most part, Americans will still choose to drive, leaving rail underutilised compared to its proponents’ hopes. I say this because most Americans love the convenience and flexibility of travel by car. For long distances, air travel is available. Yes, there are exceptions but that’s the general rule.
(3) After high speed rail doesn’t work out so well, we will hear the usual excuses from the usual people. In effect, they will say that high speed rail did not work out because it was not done intelligently.
BECAUSE (no, just kidding…I just like to cap stuff for emphasis). The answer is that if it doesn’t have a major advantage over existing modes of travel then people are going to choose based on whatever is convenient to them or whatever they have used in the past since it’s what they know…which means we will have spent a large amount of capital and gone through a lot of effort to simply provide one more alternative travel option among many.
People don’t always choose the ‘better’ mode unless there is a small advantage to one over the other…and this assumes that rail will be ‘better’ by any definition, which certainly hasn’t been proven thus far. As an example…when I lived in DC the ‘better’ choice for me commuting to Crystal City would have been to take the Metro. There was a Metro stop right across the street from where I worked (PTO). The time it took to get from the where the Metro was (Anacostia) to CCU was approximately what it took me to drive (I had to drive to the Metro, but it was on the route I drove anyway). Costs were higher for the Metro, but I was given a choice between the company paying for Metro and paying for my parking space. I chose to drive even because the advantages of the Metro were minor and it was more convenient for me usually to drive in. Putting in a HSR line that had no clear advantages over the current infrastructure would mean a lot of people would simply continue to use the current system.
If we aren’t talking about a MAJOR (;)) advantage here then we are talking about a lot of capital investment and effort for a nominal improvement over the infrastructure we’ve spent decades building and maintaining…which seems kind of a waste to me.
-XT
I have merged the two threads addressing the same issue.
[ /Modding ]
Biofuel has potential to become the Minitel of green energy, if not worse. Taking arable land, or clearing land, to grow crops for fuel might reduce the overall carbon impact, but isn’t automatically a preferable option.