High-way expansion is flattening areas, throwing oil and rock down, doing signage and some guard rails.
High speed rail is precision architecture, requiring seizing property from owners and fighting every town that doesn’t want the train coming through or stopping.
It’s not like we have a great rail network to upgrade. We’re struggling to keep what freight rail we have operational.
You can fly from Chicago to NYC for $100
You can rail from Chicago to NYC for $70 on current architecture.
You can bus from Chicago to NYC for $80
That’s a 12 hour drive. Those “highway expansions” aren’t being driven by people trying to drive 12 hours. Nor to they cost enough to build a high percision train line.
In no fossil fuel world does completing a multi-billion dollar rail project make it cheaper and faster than the existing flights.
Imagine installing a new line from scratch, from the center of Madrid to Paris. can’t reuse any existing lines, you need to mow down any homes or businesses in the way and fight every town on the way through.
We build relatively few new highways, they’re generally lane addition projects. Baltimore has added 2-3 lanes N,S and Beltway without taking any additional land beyond the stuff done in the early 1900’s.
The freight industry is a huge source of the problems in the US rail system. It should not be able to run trains longer than the passing sections, but it does it anyway because “it reduces labor costs”. Running longer trains is terrible from an engineering perspective.
High-way expansion is flattening areas, throwing oil and rock down, doing signage and some guard rails.
High speed rail is precision architecture, requiring seizing property from owners and fighting every town that doesn’t want the train coming through or stopping.
It’s not like we have a great rail network to upgrade. We’re struggling to keep what freight rail we have operational.
You can fly from Chicago to NYC for $100 You can rail from Chicago to NYC for $70 on current architecture. You can bus from Chicago to NYC for $80
That’s a 12 hour drive. Those “highway expansions” aren’t being driven by people trying to drive 12 hours. Nor to they cost enough to build a high percision train line.
In no fossil fuel world does completing a multi-billion dollar rail project make it cheaper and faster than the existing flights.
Imagine installing a new line from scratch, from the center of Madrid to Paris. can’t reuse any existing lines, you need to mow down any homes or businesses in the way and fight every town on the way through.
You speak as if highways don’t also need to seize property and destroy shit in the way to be built.
We build relatively few new highways, they’re generally lane addition projects. Baltimore has added 2-3 lanes N,S and Beltway without taking any additional land beyond the stuff done in the early 1900’s.
They’ve been trying to put a maglev in between DC and NYC for decades https://www.thebanner.com/community/transportation/northeast-maglev-high-speed-train-canceled-DDIKXTC5SZDM7IIGS2SPLEKDKQ/
It’s not like we’re not trying.
They seize it from poor people, is that what you want but on a massive fucking level?
poor people don’t tend to fight, but trains can’t easily avoid the not broke areas because of the whole “Can’t make sharp turns” thing.
The freight industry is a huge source of the problems in the US rail system. It should not be able to run trains longer than the passing sections, but it does it anyway because “it reduces labor costs”. Running longer trains is terrible from an engineering perspective.
Most of our freight rails are so poorly maintained that even passenger traffic has to slow in areas. Primary rail use here is freight.