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USA Will Invest in High-Speed Train to Fight Climate Change
(www.raillynews.com)
These projects are part of an $10 billion investment
California’s HSR system come in at $80 billion for 520 miles, or $154 million per mile. Amtrak estimates that it would cost $500 million per mile to turn its Northeast Corridor route into a true high-speed system. source
For $10 billion, we are talking an additional 20 to 65 miles of high speed rail to be built. This is basically nothing...
The worst part is that it usually follows well known cycle of:
- project is estimated at $10b, government assigns $10b
- private companies spend it on consultants and analysis, little gets built
- government agrees to invest another $5b but requires cuts to the initial scope
- with reduced scope projected passengers numbers drop, project is less attractive
- repeat until cost is 1000% of the initial estimate and usefulness is 0. cancel project
Most of this is to fund studies and the rest is probably to cover overruns. Is it political for election season? Yes, but still a step in a positive direction. We're not talking infrastructure week here.
There's ~$34 million in there to study new routes. The $3 billion of this going to CAHSR will:
- Fund six electric trains for testing and use
- Fund design and construction of trainset facilities
- Fund design and construction of the Fresno station
- Fund final design and right-of-way acquisition for the Merced and the Bakersfield extensions
- Fund construction in the Central Valley
The HSR going through the Central Valley of Cali is INSANE. the bridge and strip of it is infrastructure that area and region has legitimately never seen. I keep telling all of my friends and family here in Cali that once you can travel from Stockton to Bakersfield in 45-1 hour it’ll completely change the region. The massive economic boom from just the construction alone will be huge, but then the effect after will be felt for generation.
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Even better, I just hate that people are crapping all over making steps in a positive direction.
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Drop in the bucket, I’m curious how much it would take to make most of the US/NA traversable by high speed rail
Depends on what you mean by most.
- most of the population is quite achievable. Send a little time at https://www.ushsr.com/
- most of the geography, trillions, and we couldn’t afford to keep it operating
I really think that confusing this is a common mistake. People claim high speed rail is impossible in the US because we’re big (and ignoring China, eu), but we have plenty of cities, and most of them are clustered. High speed rail is great for cities within a few hundred miles of each other. We got those, and that’s most of the population
It’s specious to take scenarios high speed rail doesn’t do well at and claiming that it means it can’t work. Let’s apply a little intelligence here’d and use the right technology for the right scenario
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What a weak article. It's barely three paragraphs and contains basically no details. Here is the press release from the Dept of Transportation.
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I wish them all the best! May this decision carry through administrations and the USA embrace fast, public transport once again.
At this point, Trump will probably win in '24 and immediately kill off the project
Getting more than a little annoyed by the political tennis, back and forth and nothing actually getting done because everything that is done gets undone as soon as the other party takes back control
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Cool. It's just like, more than 20 years late, but cool
The 2000 election was such a massive turning point for the US. So many branching consequences, but imagine if we had had an environmentalist in the White House instead of Mr. Buy and Drill Our Way Out of This? At the time of 9/11 I believe it was Tom Daschle of SD on record calling for a Green Manhattan Project which obviously fell on deaf ears quite quickly as the bombs started raining down on Baghdad. Sure there'd still be cries for vengeance, but I also think if POTUS had been saying at the time 'we win this war by getting ourselves off foreign energy' it just might have been persuasive enough to embark on some major developments.
I keep saying that about almost everything. But yeah, "Oh cool we're where we should have been!"
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Barack Obama tried to do the same thing: https://time.com/3100248/high-speed-rail-barack-obama/
While I would love for this to be a reality, I just don't see it actually happening.
The way the US shows more progress is if the Democrats can stay in power for a long enough period of time. But the last time Dems had that kind of power was as far back as 2008. It makes you wonder if the only way Democrats can ever get into power is when a recession hits.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but with climate change in front of us, we actually don't have time.
I'm incredibly nihilistic right now.
Climate change doesn't matter when it's lawyers and economists in charge, there's money to be made... unfortunately.
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Until the Republicans shoot it down and instead use that budget to give their rich chums more tax breaks
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It’ll take the US decades to get high-speed rail up and running, especially with its culture of litigation, property rights, regulatory capture and politicised overregulation of threats to incumbents, not to mention Citizens United and the ability of the aforementioned incumbents to buy laws and regulations. By then, climate change will have won.
So, should we just give up then and not bother?
Oh good! I was hoping for some defeatism in the face of a relatively positive bit of news.
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United States will never be able to achieve something like this because tiny ass governments of little weird counties all across the country will complain about having tracks run through their stupid shit hole
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i want this to be real. I've loved trains since i was a toddler. and as an adult Trains are some thicc power chungus
unfortunately the only trains left are either subways or commercial rails, yes there is Some passenger trains. But can you get to anywhere in americs on one? Not today, Not the infrastructure that will take decades to build and Not the follow up on promises made promises. kept...coughthebigdigbostoncough
(F40PH gang gang) back in my day we memed about objects, zoomers be all meta n shit. get out of my my head charles!
Amtrak is still a thing for passenger trains. It's just that it's slower than flying and just as expensive.
Flew my wife to L.A. for her birthday, easy peasy. Couple of hours by plane.
Amtrak?
Fastest is 26 hours and 13 minutes for $230 coach tickets. Private room for $580.
Amtrak is still a thing for passenger trains. It’s just that it’s slower than flying and just as expensive.
This is the core reason passenger rail has not become dominant in the US. The country is so physically large that planes do passenger rail's job, but faster and at the same price point.
Instead, rail in the US is almost entirely bulk cargo as that makes a ton of sense. Cargo trains are cheaper than trucks/aircraft and the slower speed can be easily planned for.
It's not just slower than flying, it's slower than driving in most cases.
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Will it though?
Wow. I’m so underwhelmed.
USA will invest in high speed train to... Return on investments made by lobbyists.
Came to this thread for my daily dose of trite cynicism. Was not disappointed.
Hopefully they don't pick internal systems that lock the train if you take it to a 3rd party repair business😆
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this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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