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It's amazing, really. You can get high speed rail built for people from SoCal to lose their asses at a backgammon table in Vegas faster but if you want to, idk
by lenerdenator 3y ago
It's amazing, really.
You can get high speed rail built for people from SoCal to lose their asses at a backgammon table in Vegas faster but if you want to, idk, travel for non-recreational reasons within the Midwest and you don't want to sprint through O'Hare for a flight between where you're from and where you're going, you'll probably be driving despite years of asking for Amtrak to find a way to go above 79 MPH.
- 0xbadcafebee 3y agoI mean, first of all, doesn't it make more sense that there's more money to extract from the LA<->Vegas line? And second, Amtrak can't force CSX to upgrade its rail, and Amtrak sure as hell ain't paying. There's loads of billionaires out there now with more money than sense. Get together a PAC, lobby them to fund high-speed rail upgrades, name a rail station after them or something.
- solarpunk 3y agowe can probably skip prostrating at the rich's feet and just tax them and build nice shit. if they don't want the tax they can hurry up and build the nice shit first.
- pstuart 3y agoWe should nationalize the rail infrastructure and upgrade it to make passenger traffic a first-class citizen of the rails.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> We should nationalize the rail infrastructure and upgrade it to make passenger traffic a first-class citizen of the rails Your response to the first high-speed rail line America is likely to see completed, being built by a private operator, is to propose effectively banning it?
- lmm 3y agoHow the hell did you get that from what they wrote?
- sokoloff 3y agoIf rails are to be nationalized in the future, why would a private operator build one now? If you believe the inability to profit from the build on a recurring basis will happen, that’s an effective ban on construction of then by private operators now.
- lmm 3y ago> If rails are to be nationalized in the future, why would a private operator build one now? Nationalisation in a country like the US generally means getting bought out at a fair, even generous, price.
- delfinom 3y agoYea but I wouldn't be so happy with nationalized rail tbh. We have the MTA in NY, they run the railroads and subways. The agency is massively bloated by costs not just where it costs $1.5 billion per mile to expand the subway, but even the railways are bleeding billions per year.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> getting bought out at a fair, even generous, price Can you show me one example from the post-War era where we nationalised something that wasn’t about to fail?
- lmm 3y ago> Can you show me one example from the post-War era where we nationalised something that wasn’t about to fail? If we don't nationalise things that aren't about to fail then why should anyone be scared of being nationalised?
- anamax 3y agoA given rail system can do freight or passenger well, but not both. The US system is optimized for freight. It's not obvious that passenger is a better choice.
- nuthje 3y agoIt is for the passengers.
- sirwitti 3y agoHow so? All over Europe the same infrastructure is being used for both.
- vkou 3y agoIt's used for both, and as a consequence, European freight prefers to go on trucks.
- Symbiote 3y agoPart of this is also the different geography: Europe has more useful rivers and seas, so very bulk cargo can go by barge or ship.
- mgsouth 3y agoThe Mississipi, Ohio, and Columbia Rivers enter the room, sit down at a table where the Great Lakes are already drinking.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoThat's nice. The western two-thirds of the country gets the Columbia. That, um, might be a bit inadequate for their freight needs... I mean, sure, you can get to Kansas City and Omaha via the Missouri. You can't get to Denver, though, or Phoenix, or Salt Lake, or...
- 3y ago
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago1. The federal government is not noted for running passenger traffic well. 2. We don't want 40% more trucks on the roads, so we need the system to still be able to carry large amounts of freight. The federal government is also not known for doing that well, still less for balancing that with #1. 3. In this country, we don't just get to nationalize things. We have to pay for them. Given the pathetic rate at which Amtrak is funded, do you really think that Congress is going to spring for the kind of money to buy all the freight railroads? 4. Speaking of Congress, it's going to take continual funding to pay for keeping the system maintained. Do you want the annual maintenance budget for this (including the freight portion) to be at the annual whims of Congress? All around, this is a terrible idea.
- namlem 3y agoNo thanks, I'd rather my tax dollars not be wasted on a pointless boondoggle.
- bhhaskin 3y agoIt has more to do with land. Land is cheap and easy to acquire out there. Where as anywhere in CA it is expensive. And more so if they find out you need the land to build high speed rail.
- Log_out_ 3y agoWait till property values a resident numbers near stations climb, the people vote with there feet and wallet for good things.
- theluketaylor 3y agoBrightline itself is basically a property play. They buy up land around the proposed stations and then the train service makes that land more valuable and it's either leased or sold off for profit. The train is really a loss leader or breakeven proposition. Moving people around tends to not be that great a business in general. Providing them services once they are there is a money printing machine.
- consumer451 3y agoIt's a great thing in the way that it brings the processes and technology to build high-speed rail to the USA.