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Why can’t America have High Speed Bullet Trains?
Democrats are Anti Bullet.
Because choo-choos are inefficient and too much infrastructure.
I love the part where Trump should have studied it more. He can small a crap project from a hundred miles away.
A gift to the Democrat dominated high density population centers?
No thanks.
I’d rather cut the roads and put fences around the Left so they’re trapped than do high speed rail.
A high speed train between Richmond and DC make total sense but the yokels voted it down. They would have to expand the rail corridor a little to add new tracks. This way too much for them.
Illegal aliens and very stupid people who will put their vehicles in the paths of these trains.
Crookery at work.
As a Ferroequinologist (railroad fan), I’m going to say, we can but let private companies do it. Virgin Trains is expanding Brightline from West Palm to Orlando...and onto Tampa...
I spent a few years in DC helping to facilitate the idea of high speed train systems. There are many areas of the US that could greatly benefit from them. The problem isn’t the idea, it’s the implementation. We just can’t build anything cheaply, quickly, and efficiently any longer — and the bigger it is, the more difficult it becomes.
Take a look at any highway project as an example. Consider how quickly Eisenhower was able to get the interstate road system built, then consider how long it now takes to add a couple of simple lanes to an existing road today. It’s become ridiculous. Consider, even, how long it took to rebuild the World Trade Center site. Think, as an example, how quickly we could return to the moon — after having already been there.
We will never be able to construct big things like we did in the past. There’s too many hands in the pot to allow it to happen.
I think the question should be, why should America have high speed bullet trains.
But the reasons why we can’t have them are tied into why we don’t have passenger trains now.
1. America is not laid out like Europe. Essential businesses and population areas are spread out all over.
2. America is much bigger than Europe or Japan.
3. Americans don’t ride passenger trains or buses if they have a choice. As my daughter said, returning to Texas after a year in New York City, I don’t want to ride to work in a subway with all those creepy people. I want to drive my own pickup.
4. American rail lines are currently in the wrong places for bullet trains or the best routes are already occupied by freight lines. And they are terribly maintained because it doesn’t pay to maintain them better.
5. As shown in California, the “environmental studies” and environmental litigation encouraged by American law cost as much or more than the physical cost of construction. That doesn’t even include the vast time delays this causes, and time delays in a construction project are gigantic costs. We would not be able to build the existing Interstate highway system if we started today, either.
Nobody here wants to ride a train if they don’t have to. Bullet trains do fit the soviet-style planned economy and living conditions the progressive are so eager to force upon us, though.
The bigger question is, Why should we have high speed trains? What is the purpose, economic value, and value to the community. Just because it’s cool and everyone else has one doesn’t make it a good idea.
Because it's not profitable.
NYC, DC, Boston connection. Miami to Orlando to Jacksonville connection.
These boneheads wanted to spend billions in Florida for high speed rail from Orlando to Tampa.
At worst an 90 minute drive which the fare cost far more than a car rental for the day to drive.
The worst part of it is most people who visit Orlando and want to visit the west coast of Florida, Tampa isn't on the Gulf of Mexico beaches, so you need to rent a car anyway to go to the beach in St. Pete or Clearwater.
Thankfully Rick Scott killed it.
NYC, DC, Boston connection. Miami to Orlando to Jacksonville connection.
These boneheads wanted to spend billions in Florida for high speed rail from Orlando to Tampa.
At worst an 90 minute drive which the fare cost far more than a car rental for the day to drive.
The worst part of it is most people who visit Orlando and want to visit the west coast of Florida, Tampa isn't on the Gulf of Mexico beaches, so you need to rent a car anyway to go to the beach in St. Pete or Clearwater.
Thankfully Rick Scott killed it.
1) America is large. There's no HSR from Moscow to Paris, is there?
2) To straighten the rails from Boston to Manhattan would involve moving some of the wealthiest and most powerful people on the planet. Never happen.
A better question would be why does the US need a high speed train?
How is it that Europe has a good rail road system and the US does not. The most basic answer is because of WWII. We destroyed most of the European rail system during the war.
After the war they had to rebuild (with help from us). So in effect they had a clean slate while our rail system is a hodgepodge of competing rail service going back 150+ years.
A second thing to consider Europe is very compact compared to the US. A lot of people in a small area. The US is over 2,000 miles across and much of the middle with relatively low population. There would be no way to get a return on the investment.
Another reason is that the US concentrated on interstate highways. An individual can decide to cross our country and leave at any time they wish, stop where they wish, and still get across the country in about the same time a train could do it today.
The bottom line is that the US does not need nor want high speed rail at the cost it would take to make it happen.
This is just off the top of my head so I may be wrong.
Not to put too fine a point on it, we were promised flying cars, we want our flying cars first.
because we can't hire illegal aliens and pay them less than minimum wage