Posted on 03/17/2020 6:50:48 AM PDT by karpov
In the midst of Sunday's presidential debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, Biden blurted out that his campaign's high-speed rail plan would take "millions of automobiles off the road."
This is the second debate in which the former vice president brought up the belief that bullet trains will get people out of their cars. This is, to put it mildly, extremely unlikely.
Biden's campaign site calls for "the construction of an end-to-end high speed rail system that will connect the coasts, unlocking new, affordable access for every American." Would bullet trains passing through major cities scattered across the U.S. actually get people out of their cars?
"The answer is no," explains Baruch Feigenbaum, assistant director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation. (Full disclosure: The Reason Foundation publishes this website.) "High-speed rail primarily takes customers from aviation. Car travel might be substitutable with inner city buses, but we don't really see it in rail. That's not why other countries have built high-speed rail."
Feigenbaum notes that countries that have built high-speed rail have typically done so to reduce crowding on existing rail lines, not as a substitute for roads. The sole exception was China, which used it as an economic development project during a time when its highway system was much less robust than America's.
"Basically, Biden loves rail," Feigenbaum says, noting the vice president's roots in the northeastern Acela corridor. Indeed, the first high-speed rail project Biden says he'll focus on is increasing the speed of trains traveling from New York City to D.C. That region is the only part of America where rail travel has been shown to be efficient and profitable. Taking that mentality and trying to stretch it across the U.S. is absurd.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
This is from the land of 150 million shot dead. In other words Joe’s deteriorating mind.
Holy smokes how much prove do you need that HSR’s are a ridiculous waste of pretty much everything. The rats do love these things.
Just keep talkin’ plugs. At least for a few more months.
Bullet trains would replace a fair number of airplanes, and a few cars. Would they be better? And how do we stop the ridiculous graft like in California.
Yeah, I heard that the other night and, lucky for me I had already swallowed my sip of coke. Because “high” speed rail has been such a success where ever they’ve put it in. You know, like Amtrak has been such a success.
The fascist wants to make the trains run on time?
The guy who treats Amtrak’s NE Corridor as his own personal Lionel train set is bound to see more choo-choos as the answer.
The Reason Foundation is absolutely right about this. But they would be saying the same thing even if they were wrong.
An endorsement of trains from the guy whose own little choo-choo is going round the bend right in front of our eyes.
How's public transportation looking now with isolation strategy?
And 750 million (USA) women forced back into the labor market.
Passenger rail? Getting cars off the road? This is more for treating sheeple like cattle than anything.
Another free pot of cash for the rats to spend
The USA invested in a massive automobile interstate highway system following WW2. Europe and Japan, on the subsidization of United States military largesse, we able to basically start from scratch and develop modern passenger based rail service.
For the USA to begin working on high speed passenger rail now is actually an undertaking not really viable or affordable. It would require an entire overhaul of a system that is 80 years behind. This is a pipe dream o all pipe dreams and frankly I think we could colonize Mars with less money than to convert to high speed rail.
Building out the NE lines- using existing, adding to existing - would probably be a win. A few years back, s**tty neighborhoods in north east Philly had homes selling for decent money. The neighborhoods were nasty, near I-95, the DE river and train stations.
Folks were making a mini NYC suburb and commuting to work.
I'll drive my own car, thanks.
Putting tin foil hat on...
Agenda 21 in action, high speed rails are part of the mix, people crowding into high population density areas and housing, stir in viral pandemic, hospitals overwhelmed, Guaranteeing that all EMTs, Nurses, and Drs get infected, or abandon posts, degrading the population of caregivers, killing off remaining staffing of said hospital beds, the average age of MDs is not exactly young, and those able to keep working will become rapidly exhausted
https://www.statista.com/statistics/415961/share-of-age-among-us-physicians/
Supply chains break down, distribution of goods and services in quarantined areas curtailed, industry grinds to a halt. Add in the roving bands of brigands staging home invasions and general highway robbery, mayhem, mass death, or depredation, 1%ers (elite) isolate, hoard supplies, wait, useless eaters (as they see it) deleted from earth, all better now.
Taking tin foil hat back off (I think)
high speed rail is great, it is fantastic, once you ride one , it is an experience.
that said, HSR in USA mainland is waste of money, I do not think it will work
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.