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To take one of your points, America doesn't need high speed rail. There are barely any high speed rail on earth that are break-even let alone profitable[0]. The

To take one of your points, America doesn't need high speed rail. There are barely any high speed rail on earth that are break-even let alone profitable[0]. They are a huge suck of government funds, avenue for corruption, and ultimately are boondoggles that are not as efficient or needed as planes and busses. Especially in a country like the USA that is so spread out, very few places make sense for rail lines. [0] https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/files/high_speed_rail_lessons.pdf https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/files/high_speed_rail_...

Barrin92 6y ago
>There are barely any high speed rail on earth that are break-even let alone profitable Neither are nuclear power plants, is that an argument against them? I guess in the US nowadays it is which is why its nuclear infrastructure is decaying as well. Many of the arguments in the paper seem terrible and seem to be in reverse fashion. It says that gas is cheap so rail is unattractive. Absolutely right, but that's terrible, so make gas more expansive with a carbon tax while you're at it. It says American cities are designed around the car. That's terrible as well, redesign them. Any serious argument about high speed rail looks decades into the future anyway, so you might as well fix cities while you're at it. Planes aren't a substitute for the kind of benefits that rail gives you. With rail you can get from one metropolitan area, centre-to-centre to another one over medium distances in two hours. That's terrible with a plane or a car. Also, the US overall is spread out but many of its population centers are not. The North-East seems like a great corridor for rail, covering 50 million people give or take?
- seibelj 6y ago
  > Neither are nuclear power plants, is that an argument against them? I'm pro-nuclear, but as a society we need to think hard about what things we subsidize. Subsidizing says, "We acknowledge this is not self-sustaining, so we will make taxpayers pay for it, enriching some subset of society at the expense of others." So is nuclear, which by your admission is unprofitable, the best way to get clean energy? Or are there things we can do to adequately price externalities caused by other forms of electrical generation? Why not wind or solar? To circle back to rail - I'm definitely not convinced that we need to invest insane amounts of time, money, and physical space to high-speed rail. The northeast corridor already has rail - does it need to be a bullet train? Would it be better to invest that money in clean(er) airplanes that use less carbon? What about electric cars, electric busses, and something exotic like the hyperloop? Just parroting that "High speed rail good! All other travel bad!" does not make it so. We have ample evidence that high speed rail is not the panacea that proponents make it out to be. In fact, the governor of California recently cancelled their attempt at a bullet train from LA to San Francisco because it was a giant over-budgeted disaster. https://reason.com/2019/02/14/californias-bullet-train-project-doesnt/ https://reason.com/2019/02/14/californias-bullet-train-proje...

Barrin92 6y ago

>There are barely any high speed rail on earth that are break-even let alone profitable Neither are nuclear power plants, is that an argument against them? I guess in the US nowadays it is which is why its nuclear infrastructure is decaying as well. Many of the arguments in the paper seem terrible and seem to be in reverse fashion. It says that gas is cheap so rail is unattractive. Absolutely right, but that's terrible, so make gas more expansive with a carbon tax while you're at it. It says American cities are designed around the car. That's terrible as well, redesign them. Any serious argument about high speed rail looks decades into the future anyway, so you might as well fix cities while you're at it. Planes aren't a substitute for the kind of benefits that rail gives you. With rail you can get from one metropolitan area, centre-to-centre to another one over medium distances in two hours. That's terrible with a plane or a car. Also, the US overall is spread out but many of its population centers are not. The North-East seems like a great corridor for rail, covering 50 million people give or take?

seibelj 6y ago
> Neither are nuclear power plants, is that an argument against them? I'm pro-nuclear, but as a society we need to think hard about what things we subsidize. Subsidizing says, "We acknowledge this is not self-sustaining, so we will make taxpayers pay for it, enriching some subset of society at the expense of others." So is nuclear, which by your admission is unprofitable, the best way to get clean energy? Or are there things we can do to adequately price externalities caused by other forms of electrical generation? Why not wind or solar? To circle back to rail - I'm definitely not convinced that we need to invest insane amounts of time, money, and physical space to high-speed rail. The northeast corridor already has rail - does it need to be a bullet train? Would it be better to invest that money in clean(er) airplanes that use less carbon? What about electric cars, electric busses, and something exotic like the hyperloop? Just parroting that "High speed rail good! All other travel bad!" does not make it so. We have ample evidence that high speed rail is not the panacea that proponents make it out to be. In fact, the governor of California recently cancelled their attempt at a bullet train from LA to San Francisco because it was a giant over-budgeted disaster. https://reason.com/2019/02/14/californias-bullet-train-project-doesnt/ https://reason.com/2019/02/14/californias-bullet-train-proje...