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1. The article is meant to be aspirational, not literal. We're talking about 2040 and what we could accomplish, if we put our minds to it. 2. I did the same ca

1. The article is meant to be aspirational, not literal. We're talking about 2040 and what we could accomplish, if we put our minds to it. 2. I did the same calculations you did but went with a more provocative headline for reason cited in 1. above. 3. Re: only benefiting NY & SF, if you read my article you would know that I'm advocating a network of trains to replace the antiquated, wasteful, and enviironmentally unfriendly extant network of highway systems. 4. FDR and roads, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration. In response to your final comment about bad math, etc, I would say that your feedback is replete with the kind of overrly-literal interpretation, detail knitpicking, and generally holier than thou attitude that has given HN a bad reputation. Nonetheless, thank you for sharing your thoughts.

eesmith 6y ago
Then use 5 hours instead of 4. You can't aspire using the impossible. You'll drive off those who are wary of scammers and grifters, leaving only the gullible. The WPA didn't find the interstate highway system.
- marcacohen 6y ago
  Re: 5 vs. 4, again, it's aspirational. How do you know what's possible by 2040? Re: highways, thank you for pointing that out. I've fixed the article by s/interstate highway system/public works program/ with link to the details. Btw, FDR spent over $4B on highways, roads, and streets, a considerable sum in those days. Re: You can't aspire using the impossible." Naysayers like you are why we may hever have this.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    How do you know what's possible? How do you know it's not going to be 2 hours? Or 1 hour? The evidence you presented requires a straight connection between the two cities. That's not going to happen, for reasons I presented and for which you yourself agreed. If it happens it will be via regional hubs, say via Chicago and Denver. Even non-stop (with no additional acceleration and deceleration) that non-GC route will add more time. Plus there's the 10 minutes or so for acceleration/deceleration to 600mpn. If you pigeonhole me as a naysayer then may I pigeonhole you as one of those Project Plowshare advocates who wanted to use nukes to make harbors and canals, and fracture the ground for oil production? Or as a modern Lyle Lanley? I'm asking you to use realistic numbers which make you seem well-informed, not numbers that are easily dismissed as overly optimistic, if not ridiculous. Just like in Marge vs. the Monorail, US infrastructure is horribly under-maintained. https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/ https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/ for example. That sort of Federal involvement in local projects is more in line with FDR's Great Depression actions than Eisenhower's interstate system.
    - marcacohen 6y ago
      You are quite the douchebag, aren't you?
      - eesmith 6y ago
        Do you want to convince people of your vision? Because that seems like your goal. I'm trying to point out that if you follow your current path - including the name calling - then you won't get very far, and I've pointed out some of how people will perceive you if your pieces continue in this vein. Say "Oops, yes, I somewhat underestimated the time and was thinking of a different New Deal project. Thanks for pointing it out!" I am dead serious that I believe the poor infrastructure of our existing water, power, and mass transit systems, and horridly unequal internet service, are far more important than shaving a few hours off a transcontinental passenger service. I am also annoyed with using the huge number of small public works projects of the WPA (the largest being the TVA, which is quite large but much smaller than the Eisenhower interstate system), which was explicitly made to hire unemployed people, to justify a single large public work; and one which excludes the WPA support for artists, musicians, libraries, education programs and many others who are not construction workers or support staff. Would it really affect your views or your ability to persuade were you to posit a 5 hour estimate instead of 4? Airplane travel times have decreased over the decades because it's more fuel efficient and therefore cheaper. You can't simply predict that the future is going to faster than current estimates.
        marcacohen 6y ago
        I'm not even reading your comments any more because I know exactly who you are... - You're the "I'm smarter than you" person. - You're the "instead of getting the point of an aspirational piece, I look for technicalities" person. - You're the "I've never submitted anything to HN but I critique everyone else's submissions" person. - You're the "well, actually" person. In short, you're the reason Hacker News has such a sadly unwelcoming reputation. Well done sir or madam.
        eesmith 6y ago
brudgers 6y ago
I recommend driving from New York to San Francisco as a research project. It will take you through Omaha, across Nebraska on the Overland Route (or Lincoln Highway or I80 or the Oregon Trail -- fortunately your sister is unlikely to die of dysentery these days) and along the Platte into the Wyoming Basin, then down into Ogden, across Nevada, over Donner Pass, and down into Sacramento before finally reaching the Bay Area. The most direct route hasn't changed because the geography hasn't changed. You'll spend a thousand miles going up and down mountains and valleys. Most of it will be sparse desert and bitterly cold in the winters and broiling hot in the summer. Sparsely populated -- even Reno is only 1/2 a million people and everyone Casper, Wyoming will fit in a Division I AA football stadium because it's all a long way from anywhere of much importance except to the people who live there. Though I said I recommended it as a research project, I really recommend it because driving it will probably change your life. It's beautiful and remote and awe-inspiring in a way that the average place that people live isn't and doesn't convey over a few hours in the air 8km up. There are only four practical rail routes across the US. One further north through Montana and down to Portland used by the Great Northern. One south of the Oregon Trail that follows I40 over the Colorado Plateau south of the Grand Canyon. And finally, the only all-weather line across the width of Texas through El-Paso and southern New Mexico and Arizona. It's the reason for the Gadsden Purchase. The highway system is what public transit looks like in the US because the US is what it is. Increasingly vast, rugged and remote once you cross the Mississippi. Vast, rugged and remote in a way the tends to make it map poorly between the way we tend to think about political geography relating to physical geography. The reason there isn't high speed rail across the US isn't in the details. It isn't because of some great conspiracy. It's in the course grain of physical geography. It's not a lack of imagination. It's an abundance of rail expertise applied over the better part of two hundred years.

eesmith 6y ago

Then use 5 hours instead of 4. You can't aspire using the impossible. You'll drive off those who are wary of scammers and grifters, leaving only the gullible. The WPA didn't find the interstate highway system.

marcacohen 6y ago
Re: 5 vs. 4, again, it's aspirational. How do you know what's possible by 2040? Re: highways, thank you for pointing that out. I've fixed the article by s/interstate highway system/public works program/ with link to the details. Btw, FDR spent over $4B on highways, roads, and streets, a considerable sum in those days. Re: You can't aspire using the impossible." Naysayers like you are why we may hever have this.
- eesmith 6y ago
  How do you know what's possible? How do you know it's not going to be 2 hours? Or 1 hour? The evidence you presented requires a straight connection between the two cities. That's not going to happen, for reasons I presented and for which you yourself agreed. If it happens it will be via regional hubs, say via Chicago and Denver. Even non-stop (with no additional acceleration and deceleration) that non-GC route will add more time. Plus there's the 10 minutes or so for acceleration/deceleration to 600mpn. If you pigeonhole me as a naysayer then may I pigeonhole you as one of those Project Plowshare advocates who wanted to use nukes to make harbors and canals, and fracture the ground for oil production? Or as a modern Lyle Lanley? I'm asking you to use realistic numbers which make you seem well-informed, not numbers that are easily dismissed as overly optimistic, if not ridiculous. Just like in Marge vs. the Monorail, US infrastructure is horribly under-maintained. https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/ https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/ for example. That sort of Federal involvement in local projects is more in line with FDR's Great Depression actions than Eisenhower's interstate system.
  - marcacohen 6y ago
    You are quite the douchebag, aren't you?
    - eesmith 6y ago
      Do you want to convince people of your vision? Because that seems like your goal. I'm trying to point out that if you follow your current path - including the name calling - then you won't get very far, and I've pointed out some of how people will perceive you if your pieces continue in this vein. Say "Oops, yes, I somewhat underestimated the time and was thinking of a different New Deal project. Thanks for pointing it out!" I am dead serious that I believe the poor infrastructure of our existing water, power, and mass transit systems, and horridly unequal internet service, are far more important than shaving a few hours off a transcontinental passenger service. I am also annoyed with using the huge number of small public works projects of the WPA (the largest being the TVA, which is quite large but much smaller than the Eisenhower interstate system), which was explicitly made to hire unemployed people, to justify a single large public work; and one which excludes the WPA support for artists, musicians, libraries, education programs and many others who are not construction workers or support staff. Would it really affect your views or your ability to persuade were you to posit a 5 hour estimate instead of 4? Airplane travel times have decreased over the decades because it's more fuel efficient and therefore cheaper. You can't simply predict that the future is going to faster than current estimates.
      - marcacohen 6y ago
        I'm not even reading your comments any more because I know exactly who you are... - You're the "I'm smarter than you" person. - You're the "instead of getting the point of an aspirational piece, I look for technicalities" person. - You're the "I've never submitted anything to HN but I critique everyone else's submissions" person. - You're the "well, actually" person. In short, you're the reason Hacker News has such a sadly unwelcoming reputation. Well done sir or madam.
        eesmith 6y ago

brudgers 6y ago

I recommend driving from New York to San Francisco as a research project. It will take you through Omaha, across Nebraska on the Overland Route (or Lincoln Highway or I80 or the Oregon Trail -- fortunately your sister is unlikely to die of dysentery these days) and along the Platte into the Wyoming Basin, then down into Ogden, across Nevada, over Donner Pass, and down into Sacramento before finally reaching the Bay Area. The most direct route hasn't changed because the geography hasn't changed. You'll spend a thousand miles going up and down mountains and valleys. Most of it will be sparse desert and bitterly cold in the winters and broiling hot in the summer. Sparsely populated -- even Reno is only 1/2 a million people and everyone Casper, Wyoming will fit in a Division I AA football stadium because it's all a long way from anywhere of much importance except to the people who live there. Though I said I recommended it as a research project, I really recommend it because driving it will probably change your life. It's beautiful and remote and awe-inspiring in a way that the average place that people live isn't and doesn't convey over a few hours in the air 8km up. There are only four practical rail routes across the US. One further north through Montana and down to Portland used by the Great Northern. One south of the Oregon Trail that follows I40 over the Colorado Plateau south of the Grand Canyon. And finally, the only all-weather line across the width of Texas through El-Paso and southern New Mexico and Arizona. It's the reason for the Gadsden Purchase. The highway system is what public transit looks like in the US because the US is what it is. Increasingly vast, rugged and remote once you cross the Mississippi. Vast, rugged and remote in a way the tends to make it map poorly between the way we tend to think about political geography relating to physical geography. The reason there isn't high speed rail across the US isn't in the details. It isn't because of some great conspiracy. It's in the course grain of physical geography. It's not a lack of imagination. It's an abundance of rail expertise applied over the better part of two hundred years.