"High speed rail may make sense
This blog tends to be pretty negative, because it seems like that's all the news there is.
But this high speed rail plan could be a good idea.
High speed rail has a lot of synergy with forward-looking technology. Assuming they build that green, smart energy infrastructure, this would be the one of the best transportation technologies to adapt to it. It addresses range problems of electric vehicles, and the infrastructure problems of alternatives- hydrogen, fuel cells, plug-in hybrids, etc. And if they continued to develop this technology, these trains can actually move at speeds pretty comparable to commercial aircraft.
I like high speed rail over aircraft, in general. If you factor all the time for layovers, weather delays, and how miserable commercial flying has become, I'd rather go on a train assuming it was actually moving faster than a car (as these would be) and could maintain a reasonable schedule (a big if).
But it seems to me that freight transportation would be better served than passenger transportation here. There's an awful lot of freight that could see huge improvements in speed, efficiency, and pollution if it was adapted for high speed rail. I'm also kind of skeptical that people are going to use the passenger lines- it seems like almost a cultural thing. Passenger rails (and a lot of mass transit in general) have been shunned by Americans for a long time- even if the service is pretty decent, it probably would be largely underutilized. Hopefully they'll do both and be able to carry freight as well.
In the end, if we're going to have the government spending infinity dollars and stepping into the role of directing the economy, which it appears we are, I'd much rather see them doing things like this. If there was a mobilization of the economy, I'd rather see them build a nationwide solar/wind/geotherm/hydro/whatever smart grid, like some of the huge public works projects during the Great Depression. I'd rather see them develop a nationwide high-speed rail network, like the superhighway program. I'd rather see them funding research on general science and engineering, or specific technologies like fusion power. There's some things that are difficult for private industry to come together, standardize, and move in a coherent direction on. I'd rather see government try to identify and work towards something like that, instead of handing over most of the cash to the banksters.
Of course, we'll probably go bankrupt either way. But if we're going to spend money we don't have and then try to inflate out, I'd rather have something that had some utility for people come from it, as opposed to funding Wall Street fraud and excess, which is where most of the money has gone so far.
But this high speed rail plan could be a good idea.
High speed rail has a lot of synergy with forward-looking technology. Assuming they build that green, smart energy infrastructure, this would be the one of the best transportation technologies to adapt to it. It addresses range problems of electric vehicles, and the infrastructure problems of alternatives- hydrogen, fuel cells, plug-in hybrids, etc. And if they continued to develop this technology, these trains can actually move at speeds pretty comparable to commercial aircraft.
I like high speed rail over aircraft, in general. If you factor all the time for layovers, weather delays, and how miserable commercial flying has become, I'd rather go on a train assuming it was actually moving faster than a car (as these would be) and could maintain a reasonable schedule (a big if).
But it seems to me that freight transportation would be better served than passenger transportation here. There's an awful lot of freight that could see huge improvements in speed, efficiency, and pollution if it was adapted for high speed rail. I'm also kind of skeptical that people are going to use the passenger lines- it seems like almost a cultural thing. Passenger rails (and a lot of mass transit in general) have been shunned by Americans for a long time- even if the service is pretty decent, it probably would be largely underutilized. Hopefully they'll do both and be able to carry freight as well.
In the end, if we're going to have the government spending infinity dollars and stepping into the role of directing the economy, which it appears we are, I'd much rather see them doing things like this. If there was a mobilization of the economy, I'd rather see them build a nationwide solar/wind/geotherm/hydro/whatever smart grid, like some of the huge public works projects during the Great Depression. I'd rather see them develop a nationwide high-speed rail network, like the superhighway program. I'd rather see them funding research on general science and engineering, or specific technologies like fusion power. There's some things that are difficult for private industry to come together, standardize, and move in a coherent direction on. I'd rather see government try to identify and work towards something like that, instead of handing over most of the cash to the banksters.
Of course, we'll probably go bankrupt either way. But if we're going to spend money we don't have and then try to inflate out, I'd rather have something that had some utility for people come from it, as opposed to funding Wall Street fraud and excess, which is where most of the money has gone so far.
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