"Socialism" from Philadelphia to New York in 37 minutes
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"Socialism" from Philadelphia to New York in 37 minutes
How cool would it be to travel from Philadelphia to New York in 37 minutes? I don't know. Truth is, we may never know. I would put high-speed rail -- the subject of an interesting multi-part series that began in the Inquirer today -- near the top of the great ideas of 2008 that is surely getting lost in the kill-all-government-spending-except-the-Bush-and-Obama-wars-and-Bush-tax-cuts-for-the-rich frenzy of 2010.
As I'm sure Glenn Beck will say sometime in the near future, show me one place where the Founding Fathers said anything about high-speed rail!!!
Here's the crux:
Want to go from Los Angeles to San Francisco in two hours, 40 minutes? Or from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh in 21/2 hours? Or from Philadelphia to New York in 37 minutes?
Want to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 71 percent per passenger-mile compared with car travel, or 76 percent compared with air travel?
Want to cut travel fatalities to zero? That's how many people have died in high-speed train accidents in France or Spain or Japan.
Want to escape airport security lines? Want to get out of seat belts? Want to elude traffic gridlock?
Want to spend $10 billion a year?
To the Tea Party crowd, you lost them at $10 billion. What a shame. This is a program that would create literally thousands of manufacturing jobs in the private sector in the United States, as contracts are awarded, and then would create thousands more jobs for mechanics to maintain the trains and the tracks, and for people to operate the system once it is running. Frankly, the global warming and traffic and safety benefits, while importantly, are tangential to the jobs right now. But it doesn't really matter because America has lost its nerve, especially our leaders.
One other quote from the article stuck with me:
"This is what the rest of the world is doing," said Robert Yaro, an urban planning professor at the University of Pennsylvania and president of the Regional Plan Association, a New York-area research group. "We're behind not only France and Spain and the U.K. and Japan and China and Korea, but now Morocco and India and Vietnam are building high-speed rail. This is what we have to do.
The rest of the world isn't paralyzed by fear.
you listening Reber?— Klambake
Comment removed.- Unlike roads, which aren't subsidized by government one bit.— will
- The basic message of rail travel in the US is "it doesn't go where you want to". It's not *fear*, Will. It's skepticism. Create a proposal that doesn't look (or smell) like Amtrak and you might have a chance.— MaggieL
- I approve of the idea - in theory. But there is one very important phrase from the article you left out - "Some of the lines operate at a profit". Some. In the current economy "some" isn't enough to attract the private investment needed to keep such a system from becoming another Amtrack - a system that can't survive without subsidies. A large part of that is because 1) the rail infrastructure that still exsists in this country is geared toward freight, and that traffic gets priority (Amtrack trains must yield to commercial traffic, as I found out when lookinginto the possibility of using the train for a cross-country trip); and 2) that infrastructure is seriously deteriorated - it's good enough for relatively slow-moving freight trains, but can't handle something like this. One of the great tragedies in this country was how we let the most robust railway system in the world collapse - no one thought that it was worth keeping it up to date when cars, trucks, and planes became the prime movers. True, it was because the latter were, at the time, more effective and efficient, so it was - again, at the time - the smart economic decision. So we are stuck with an infrastructure that is not far removed from the nineteenth century. Europe and Japan, on the other hand, had to rebuild much of their infrastructure after World War 2, so upgrading was not as much of a problem. I would have to believe that acquiring new right-of-ways and building the track would cost much more than the estimates quoted in the article. Personally I would love to see it - but that train has left the station, and isn't coming back. A shame, but true. (Not to mention the very different patterns of housing and business development in the U.S.) Maybe someday some combination of a Bill Gates and a Warren Buffett will figure out a way, but for now it is simply a track too far. I wish it were otherwise, but it isn't.— what is truth?
- Comment removed.
- Hey Bunch, I love how you talk about jobs created, but yet what about the toll takers, street crews, epa officials, ems, police, etc., that would no longer be needed due to the heavenly double rainbow nature of these trains? You are a failure each day.
- Comment removed.
- If this is such a great idea and "not socialism", I'm sure all the big-deal capitalists on Mr. Yaro's board (you did go to their website?) are falling over each other to invest in such a wonderful opportunity to make money and meet all the demand for going from Philly to Pittsburgh in 3 hours on the train's schedule instead of less than one hour by air or five hours whenever you want on the Turnpike (you know, the one Fast Eddie wants to sell to pay off union pensions and subsidize Philly busses). Imagine the profits to be made! Why leave this to the government?— MaggieL
- The rest of the world is also realizing that you cannot keep spending and spending. High speed rail is highly subsidized throughout Europe. The US doesn't have the money to get the industry started. That's why it isn't here already. Yes, it will create jobs, but not until the industry get going. Plus, this doesn't solve the problem of the aging railway infrastructure. Most high speed trains cannot use the same tracks as freight trains. So while this would help the passenger lines, it would do nothing for the freight lines. Freight lines would be at an even bigger disadvantage than they really are now.— buttermilk67
- Hmm you still have to power the trains with electricity and how do you get this electricity Bunch? From coal, oil, nuclear, solar, and wind (but some of your friends don't want that in their back yard ruins their several million dollar view yet they hate people with money). Its a nice idea but we need to work on local rail first before we tackle HSR. I live in South Jersey and unless you live in Camden County you have to drive about 25-35 mins a day with traffic to the PATCO line and change trains to get to 30th street station. Also NJT cannot access Philly like it can in NYC you would need to fix that too in order to make HSR work.— lcd24
- Just curious, Will - why, instead of banning Bill Atkinson tens of time and having him come back under another moniker, don't you just ban his IP address? Not that I'd want you to ban him for good, of course, His posts - such as when he expresses jealousy for lying, cheating, tax payers' money stealing, adulterers - are always amusing.— Talking point sleuth
- Comment removed.
- WTF does high speed rail have to do with politics, Will??— bobbyd24
- Will has obviously forgottent that high speed rail costs money. On the other hand, tax cuts, pointless and eternal wars, and defense spending are all free. That's a good thing, since we're well over a trillion dollars on the Iraq War. Luckily, we don't have to pay for that.— DiTurno
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