Friday, January 29, 2010
High-Speed Rail Chugs On
The Obama administration announces $8 billion in awards for various corridor projects.
By Kevin Bullis
On Thursday the Obama administration announced awards for its high-speed rail program, started under last year's stimulus bill, and $8 billion will be distributed among nine "major corridor" projects.
These corridors are meant to connect major cities in various regions. They won't offer cross-country trips, and that makes sense--for longer trips, air travel will probably be more appealing. It's not clear, however, that high-speed rail will catch on across a country whose infrastructure is heavily geared toward cars. What will people do once they step off the train in Los Angeles? Maybe some fearless entrepreneur will set up an electric car rental service at the station.
Of course, $8 billion scattered among all these projects won't be enough to get the lines built. It'd be sad if the money to finish them doesn't come through and twenty years from now we've got no more to show for the investment than some dead-end high speed rail tracks overgrown with weeds.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments
Matthew Putm...
01/29/2010
Posts:35
Instead of pouring billions in prestigious TGV / ICE projects, the US and the European states should better invest in improving existing services and rail-tracks. Train running at 160-180km/h existed in France and in Germany since more than 50 years providing fast and reliable transport a at reasonable cost. Increasing the speed from 100km/h to 180km/h on a 200km track would cost between 1 and 2 billion Euro instead of 35 billions. Taking into account that a high-speed train needs 20km before reaching its cruise speed and again 20km for a comfortable stop, for most of the trips, 160-180km/h max speed with no intermediate stop would satisfy all passengers.
BernphiGui
02/01/2010
Posts:1
Why not the same thing they do when they step out of LAX? Car rental, taxi, meet a friend, take a bus, etc. If anything its easier, since car rental companies can use their in-town locations to serve the rail stations.
snedunuri
02/01/2010
Posts:50
A new analysis of the causality of motion leads to the conclusion that we are immersed in energy, lots and lots of it. Normal matter moves in an immense, crystal-like lattice of energetic particles without which neither gravity, nor electromagnetism, nor even motion would be possible. Soon we’ll use this knowledge to build vehicles that can move at enormous speeds and negotiate right angle turns without slowing down and without incurring damage due to inertial effects. Floating sky cities impervious to earthquakes, tsunamis and bad weather, New York to Beijing in minutes, Earth to Mars in hours; that’s the future of energy and travel.
Physics: The Problem With Motion
PS. Don't say nobody told you because I just did.
Mapou
02/01/2010
Posts:198
@Mapou: Your stated theories are sound, but obviously not for our lifetimes or even the next couple centuries. In the meantime, it would do America some good to spend money on things you & I or at least our offspring could utilize before the world completely goes "Star Trek".
JPAdamsjr
02/01/2010
Posts:1
CKM
02/01/2010
Posts:1
The environmental costs alone for such a project doom it to failure. This is nothing but another politiacal boondogle. Those spending this money now will never be held accountable, as they will be dead before any such project could ever be completed.
eberg
02/01/2010
Posts:1
US rail used to travel at much higher speeds than today on a routine basis, oddly that was when passenger rail was owned and operated by private companies interested in competing for business. Of course, you can't compete against systems subsidized by Uncle Sam, and rail deteriorated to the mediocre Government run system we see today. Canada went the same route and has many of the same issues (including periodic calls for governments to subsidize high speed rail corridors). If high speed rail made sense, then some private entity would be more than willing to raise the capital to create it.
Rail travel <i>might</i> be viable again if it is privatized and put on the same level playing field as road and air transport (so no more tax breaks, subsidies or pork barral "stimulus"), but given the low population density of the United States, I suspect rail fill a niche service rather than a main transportation artery for passengers.
Thucydides
02/01/2010
Posts:24