What are the prospects for a high-speed rail network in the United States?

[BrightNShiny]

Who says you have to leave your car at the station? The trains could have places to park your car, just like the chunnel or some other trains in Europe. That’d be cool, you wouldn’t have to rent a car at your destination.

The system we have in place now with normal low-speed rail, highways and airlines is really pretty good.

See, I think just the opposite. Airlines are completely inconvenient, their on-time reliability is non-existent, and they’ve become a sink-hole for government money.

I’d much rather take a high-speed train from LA to Vegas than have to fly. Plus, I might travel more if I didn’t have to worry about jacked-up last-minute ticket prices.

[Neurotik]

*Originally posted by BrightNShiny *
**See, I think just the opposite. Airlines are completely inconvenient, their on-time reliability is non-existent, and they’ve become a sink-hole for government money.

I’d much rather take a high-speed train from LA to Vegas than have to fly. Plus, I might travel more if I didn’t have to worry about jacked-up last-minute ticket prices. **

Why don’t you just plan ahead 3 weeks? Then you don’t have to worry about jacked-up last minute ticket prices. You would already have your ticket. It’s not like they can suddenly charge you more money for the ticket after you’ve bought it.

Anyway, the fact that airlines are inconvenient isn’t true for everyone. In fact, it’s quite convenient for me to fly short distances (200+ miles). Their on-time reliability is just fine. I’ve never been delayed more than an hour, and that was on a cross country flight from DC to LA, which I used to do 6 times a year for about 4 years. I’ve never had a delay going DC to New York on the shuttle flight. And a high speed train would be just as much of a sinkhole as airlines.

A high-speed train would be more expensive for individuals, require just as much upkeep as airlines (I’m guessing), and not get you there either slower or just as quickly. I fail to see any major advantages to a high-speed rail system that would justify major spending for it.

[furt]

*Originally posted by scr4 *
I don’t see how points 1 and 2 are important for an inter-city high-speed rail system, which is what this thread is about.

Because the viability of the system is not based on travel from city-center to city-center, but from place to place that people actually want to go to. I (as potential rail customer) don’t care about “Orlando” to “Miami” in theoretical terms … I care about my house on the edge of Orlando to my freind’s house in Little Havana, or the UM campus in Coral Gables, or the 14th street beach, and in chosing rail vs. car, I have to factor in the time, trouble and expense of getting from my “real” destination to the train station.

A much larger percentage of Americans live outside the city center, and that city center is a pain to get to. On a smaller scale, it’s the same reason that mass transit doesn’t exist in the 'burbs – most people would have to walk half a mile to the bus stop, and when you factor that in, it’s not so efficient.

[smiling_bandit]

Australia’s got a reasonably run rail system. It doesn’t have any high speed trains (although there is a proposal for one floating around), but we still manage to run a dedicated, state-owned passenger rail system. And we’re much worse off than America in terms of running it - we have a country similar in size to the 48 states, but less than 20 million people to provide the tax dollars for it. Our cities are spread out, and there are a few big ones and the rest are really quite small, meaning that we have to even run services from (say) Sydney to Broken Hill (a town on the western border of NSW).

The US would have things easy in contrast. There are many majr cities spread reasonably close across the continent, and 280 million people to pay for it rather than 20 million.

Your post makes it apparent you just do not quite understand the nature of the facts, here.

In Australia, nearly all the population lives in a very thickly populated zone around the edges of the country. I’ve seen population maps of the place - the whole interior is largely empty.

This is simply not true in America. We have large cities all across out interior, and we use more moasts that Australia. Lets see you run rail lines crisscrossing the big wasteland on the interior, then you can talk. Plus, as many posters have pointed out, our land is not unused, and it will not be cheap to buy and build a huge rail network. When they put in the highway network, rail would have been a moronic idea. Now, it may be a theorectically nice idea, but so are personal cold-fusion powered flying pegasi, and rail is simply not cost-effective.

Moreover, Our country has a few things to pay for that Australia does not. We do not like high taxes. The question has never been, “Can we pay for this?”, but “Is it WORTH it to pay for this?”.

[gex_gex]

originally posted by smiling bandit
Your post makes it apparent you just do not quite understand the nature of the facts, here.

In Australia, nearly all the population lives in a very thickly populated zone around the edges of the country. I’ve seen population maps of the place - the whole interior is largely empty.

Thanks for the geography lesson, but I explained this. Of course we don’t have to service communities in the large expanse of nothing in the centre. But we do have communities that are a long way from anywhere, with not many people that we do have to service. If we can run a train line from Broken Hill to Sydney for about 20 000 people, you guys could run a train line from Indianapolis to Philadelphia via Pittsburgh for about 3 million people.

We mightn’t have to cater for a large expanse of nothing, but we do have to cater for a big expanse of very little. All you guys need is to cater for a big expanse of a lot. I mean, do you have any large cities as isolated as Perth?

Moreover, Our country has a few things to pay for that Australia does not. We do not like high taxes. The question has never been, “Can we pay for this?”, but “Is it WORTH it to pay for this?”.

Australia, similar to America is one of the lowest-taxed countries in the first world.

[smiling_bandit]

Yes, we *could/i] do that. But with the highways in place it wouldn’t be very cost-effectively.