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The train infrastructure over 50 years? I doubt if air travel is even close to as environmentally friendly The real problem with not doing the trains is the ri
by melling 5y ago
The train infrastructure over 50 years? I doubt if air travel is even close to as environmentally friendly
The real problem with not doing the trains is the right of ways become difficult.
California wanted to build high-speed rail in the 1970s but the car culture won. They kept expanding the highways.
Now they can’t build directly between SF and LA, for example.
People also overlook that trains can make a few stops along the way.
China transports over a billion passengers a year by rail. Put them in the air
- antihero 5y agoAlso by building dedicated express and high speed train lines (such as we're doing in the UK with HS2) you enable the stopping services to be far more efficient and frequent, which means more people can use them.
- giantrobot 5y ago> Now they can’t build directly between SF and LA, for example. Geography and geology make building HSR between LA and SF difficult. You'd need to bore through a bunch of mountains to get to the Central Valley and then bore through more mountains to get to the SFBA.
- melling 5y agoi imagine building the more direct route in the 1970s would have been much cheaper, even after adjusting for inflation
- giantrobot 5y agoThe Coast and Traverse Ranges in California have been around a little longer than the 1970s.