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Why the US has no highspeed rail

I honestly did not listen to the whole thing.
I clicked on it more to read the comments.

It has a ton of America bashing in it.

And my mind immediately zeros in on something.

Being an IT guy, I tend to look at things  from a cost to benefit ratio.

And here is my post:

Why the US has no High-speed Rail…. Why does the US NEED a high speed rail? A rail can only be “high speed” if there are no stops in between. So where does a mass of amounts of people need to go at high speeds that can’t be achieved by more cost effective methods? Up and down the coast of California? Yeah that could make sense if California wasn’t carrying more debt than the rest of the country. Why do you need high speed rail when teleconferencing is a thing? High speed rail is for moving people. Are you telling me that is it more cost effective to move presumably highly affluent people by train rather than by plane or simple teleconferencing. Sorry.. High speed rail is a vanity project. It serves no real purpose in the US. If it did. Google or Microsoft or Amazon would just build it.

So back to my train of thought (pun intended)

Why exactly is a dedicated rail even wanted…   To go from “where”  to “where” and who would use such a transport. After all all the countries that seem to have a high speed rail are not dealing with nearly the distances we have  with the exception of perhaps China.  But Again… Where are we going to and from?  LA to DC?  NYC  to DC ?

And Who need to go from point A to point B.

Would it make more sense to build a local office building where the people are and connected to the main office with fiber-optic connectivity?

Naturally we have large cities in the US and we need to move people from the suburbs to the inner city high-rises.  and for that we already have rail that travels at some significant speeds… maybe not 200 mph  but  they get up there between 70 and 100.

I mean  it sounds about as effective as making a 500 mile toboggan run from Arizona to New Mexico.

And then it comes to my mind…

Why is having a high speed rail a commentary on our development as a society? As if  NOT having a high speed rail means  the USA is somehow deficient. That if the USA  doesn’t have at least one high speed rail that  we are not keeping up with the rest of the world.

Perhaps someone can explain to me why high speed rail is even a thing.

I have used rail transport and it is no more comfortable a ride than air travel.  They still try and cram as many people on the thing as they can.

I just do not see it as anything approaching a viable method of transport.

6 replies on “Why the US has no highspeed rail”

I’m not close enough to participate but I hear via radio a lot of the discussions around the trolley project in Milwaukee, WI. While by no means high speed, it seems to be the same “all the cool kids have one” desire. Wheeled trolleys or buses make a lot more sense especially here with ice and snow on the roads and variable traffic needs based on which events are going on.

A few years back there was also a push to redo the rail line from Milwaukee to Madison, the largest and second largest cities in the state and about an hour or a little more by car on the freeway that directly connects them. The proposal at first had the train running on existing track which passes through multiple small towns where speed decreases would be necessary at road crossings, and actual stops for passengers was discussed. This would completely kill the “high speed” aspect of the train and as the rail lines were not the maglev or other advanced lines the train speed would barely eclipse that of a car. The proposal also had the line ending at the airport in Madison, which is on the outskirts of the town so you couldn’t actually get anywhere in the city on the train and a bus route or many cabs would be required. Luckly we still had our good governor and a mostly sane legislature so the idea never broke ground.

I still hope the various “move the government out of DC” arguments get implemented one way or another and the House and Senate can be released from the burden of finding over priced housing in DC for their stays and can all telecommute from their various State capitols or properly IT secured campaign offices.

I think the main cause of our lack of high speed rail is our decentralized population over greater distances than is found in the other rail using countries. As you point out Patrick, we have a lot of space here, and unless you want to spend more time in a little box you’re going to fly. California is (supposedly) trying to build a high speed rail, but it sounds like they are not running it where it would make sense and the project is part of the budget woes, though maybe not a significant part. NYC to DC and either of them to Chicago make some sense as well, but regular flights from O’hare east are probably more popular with the business travelers who have to actually GO and there is already significant train traffic up and down the eastern coast. With the density there, I’m not sure: could a high speed rail line be put in?

My point is I’m not sure how well high-speed rail works in the countries that use it all of the time since I don’t know of a situation where market forces were allowed to make the decision for more than local metro-area transit. High-speed rail is primarily forced on people by government. Even in the ones that are running in California, the use and practicality is underwhelming (since I have ridden on the ones around San Francisco and have driven elsewhere in California). I read an article once claiming that the best “transit system” to carry North Easterners from one large city to another (as you suggest) is best left to private bus lines who can occupy a corner for a few minutes to load passengers, charge them $20-40 cash and deposit them on a similar street corner in the destination city. No need for additional infrastructure like terminals or depots…let alone rails. In other words, usually the best answer to the problems of “transit systems” is not to have a “system”. In the area where I live, the local politicians have been trying to convince the population they REALLY NEED mass transit between a string of cities along a 35 mile interstate corridor. And the second largest metro area in our state keeps saying “Traffic jams? What traffic jams?” Seriously…there may be a 15 minute delay at 5:30 pm every day in one spot on the interstate going in one direction…and that requires mass transit?

I’m not sure a market question applies to high speed rail really well since it is a very location specific. You can’t use true high speed transport in a city since there isn’t enough distance to speed up and slow down. It has to be city to city, more similar to flights. Then you can factor in price of plane ticket vs train vs high speed vs bus. Since major infrastructure tends to get involved with trains and plains, and rights of way for tracks you usually have some kind of governmental subsidy involved as well which also hampers the market force.

I think one factor is the “I want it” of the left overruling the “is this a good idea” that an honest debate can ask and answer, by finding the number of people traveling from Point A to B, average price of current transport, expected costs to implement a new option and the public good that option will provide. And then someone that comes up with stupid numbers getting laughed out of the room for being a moron.

So what you are saying is that market forces would not come up with the conclusion that high-speed rail is a good idea, which is what I was saying. Air transport was not forced on Americans by the government but is a thing because there was (and still is) enough market demand. The US has hundreds of little airports that service America’s need for transport that are not subsidized by any government. The big airlines and airports have problems precisely because big government got involved in their business. Before flying became so accessible, the thing WAS railroads. And railroads became a thing in the US because of market forces…which includes the long distances between cities in many parts of our country. At that time traveling faster than a horse and buggy was a great accomplishment. Then when cars became a thing (through market forces), a maze of country-wide roads appeared…not all of which are federally funded. Telecommuting is becoming a thing due to market forces. Freight rail is still a thing because it serves market forces as a convenient and cost-effective way to move tons of freight over long distances. But if you want your freight faster, airplanes are it. Which means that high-speed rail will never be a market-supported means of transportation in the US (or nearly any other country).

I’m not sure you can compare train line build-out now with the 1840s due to the increased population and property ownership now. Certainly if there is a market for train travel there would be money to buy the property to lay the track. IF the government could not be involved the market might be able to say it is a good or a bad idea but even so, it might work a couple areas and not in a bunch more based on population density and movement. In areas where there is already a high reliance on cars there also won’t be as much demand and if I was thinking more clearly I probably would have written that the market would never have the chance to find out if they are a good or bad idea because common sense would tell most people never to try.

Maybe I’m just looking at this from another angle, and calling this a solution in search of a problem. We don’t need it and so govt doesn’t need to help it.

For nerds and techie’s who work on creating and improving scientific innovations, their creations MUST be the coolest and best ideas ever. Their bubble is totally burst if you say “But does it really work in the real world?” And the mainstream media (who made that video) and social media (because they are the owners of the businesses who run the platforms) amplify their voice above that of more reasonable people. China is not an example of anything except how to waste the hard work of billions of people. The US is larger and has more areas of low population than the entire EU combined. And at the moment, the French people are upset that their government is forcing them to commute into big cities in order to find jobs. Forcing everyone to sit on top of each other is the only way to make passenger trains work for any distance. The Japanese are just too polite to complain (and you can’t for the life of you get a driver’s license there). Maybe the techies will like the US again of we invent Star Trek transporters.

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