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USA Will Invest in High-Speed Train to Fight Climate Change
(www.raillynews.com)
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this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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The US is extremely far behind the rest of the developed world and even much of the developing world at this point. It will take decades to catch up, let alone become a leader.
empires falling, history on repeat
Who cares how long it's going to take, it still needs to be done. And the only way to do it is to start.
There's the issue. The US has a nasty habit of constant false-starts. The way things are set up, it's really hard for anything to stick. Not impossible, mind you. But as soon as a Republican gets involved, projects tend to die. It's a cycle of frustrating futility.
This grant amount is enough to build 39 miles of HSR based on California's project costs. That's 39 miles of rail for the entire nation. I'm not sure you can qualify this as a 'start'. More than likely, this money will be completely wasted as it isn't enough to do anything especially when you spread it out over 50 different states, which would equate to 4,000 feet of track, or 3/4 mile, per state.
Even then it'll probably just be from one town to another very close by thus really only useable for a small subset of people. We need trans continental high speed railways not puddle jumpers
No, really not. It would be great for those of us who prefer that solution but let’s pick the right tool for the job. I believe the current rule of thumb is high speed rail beats flying for cities up to 500 miles apart. Let’s focus on those. Hopefully we end up with an interconnected system as the preferred way to travel between those cities and so some of us can do long distance rail, but there will always be a threshold where flying is cheaper, easier, faster