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"You're forgetting the immense networks of rural roads. With high speed trains you can't just throw a level crossing up, and wait for a pickup full of chickens
by timr 14y ago
"You're forgetting the immense networks of rural roads. With high speed trains you can't just throw a level crossing up, and wait for a pickup full of chickens to get t-boned at 220mph. And then there is the wildlife - you'd need high fences the entire distance to stop wildlife and stock from wandering onto the tracks, but that also causes other issues with wildlife corridors."
Right. Because they don't have vehicles, chickens or wildlife in any of the other nations with high-speed rail networks. These are clearly unsolvable problems.
Sometimes it seems like people are just reaching to find any possible excuse to dismiss the idea based on ideology alone, doesn't it?
- calinet6 14y agoI really don't think people don't want HSR. It's pretty clear they do. I think it just makes sense to center the HSR around the most valuable areas, not just build it out in rural areas because it's easier to go faster, which is basically equivalent to "because we can" logic. I don't think we should build huge transportation projects just because we can; that's my problem. It has nothing to do with ideology, it's just logic and economics. As far as the problem with wildlife and trucks and rural roads—you just need a grade-separated track with passages above and below. Expensive but necessary and plausible.