HSR moves people, not freight. The number of passenger rail lines that have made money in the entire history of the US can probably be counted on two hands. Leaving thousands and thousands of miles of rail projects.
There is nothing wrong or perverted or obtuse or otherwordly about that. It is, however, the reality!
To make money, such trains would have to move large numbers of people on a consistent basis, meaning, in essence, jobs. Not travel for the sake of travel. So where and how will we create jobs or the environment wherein jobs will gush forth by creating a transportation between point A, B, and C.
The CA line is a case in point. What opportunity exists in LA that is unmet by the people who live around LA, such that allowing No CA people to travel there would fulfill the spectrum of opportunity that you claim exists? None. Or Vice versa. Do we think people from LA or Oakland will rail travel to central CA so they can pick tomatoes? Or central CA people to LA so they can star in movies? Or write software?
I mean it just doesn't connect, the start of the sentence to the end of the sentence, the start of the proposition to the end of the proposition.
The CA rail is going to Corcoran California, so at least the prison guard union will be able to make it to the Lakers game on time. They’ll probably have plenty of room to spread out and kick their feet up too.
Dems like bullet trains because they’re European. There’s no justifiable reason for them but just to try and make us be more like them. They are not profitable and aren’t practical in a country this size.
“This whole obsession with high speed rail is so completely...backwards to me.”
You need to rethink things in the future. This is all about expensive slush fund projects and then you get union govt rail workers and then you have govt bailing it out and more money disappearing. It all has to do with looting taxpayers. Logic never enters into it - it is all about power and theft.
From what I understand, even in Japan, rail is subsidized.