“That percentage actually increases significantly where adequate transit systems are available.”
Are you suggesting that Americans are more or less likely to ride on these bullet trains than the Japanese who’ve had 20 years with the technology? My point, is that even assuming they’ve had the technology for the same amount of time, most Americans prefer to ride their vehicles. This is a cultural difference between America and Japan.
“You’re not dumb enough to think gas prices are going to go down, are you?”
In constant dollars? Yes, I think we will see gas prices go down. I’m not one of the peak oil folks, who have little vision. It has always been the case that as prices increase, more oil fields become profitable, and as techology improves, the price associated with oil extraction will come down.
“It’s getting pretty foolish to just keep adding lanes, especially considering that Oil will NEVER be as cheap or plentiful as it was back in IKE’s day.”
So it’s less foolish to waste 1 trillion dollars on these bullet trains, that do not take you where you need to go? Ike’s interstate system paid for itself in the increased efficiency across America. These bullet trains do not have the same benefit. They are at best a gimmick, and at worse, a money pit and a white elephant.
Being from Canada, I wish we had a politician with the drive and vision of Ike to expand our major transportation systems to interstate standards.
As it is the system is burdened, by choke points at bridges as other posters have brought up. It would be far more cost-efficient to open these bottlenecks.
This is a cultural difference between America and Japan.
I think that's a myth.
Americans will take whatever mode of transportation is the most convenient way of getting to whereever it is that they want to go.
It could be a car, trolley, bus, bicycle, skateboard, boat, monorail, plane, balloon, motorcycle, rocket, snowmobile, donkey, minivan, SUV, high-speed rail, maglev, pogo stick, hang glider... and a hundred other ways I could dream up.
Americans like CHOICES.
And your mass transit obstructionism deprives them of having a CHOICE.