Europe and Asia are the leaders in high-speed rail systems. China has the world's longest high-speed rail systems, with more than 5,000 miles and by 2020; they expect to have over 10,000 miles. For the past 50 years, the US government has dedicated their time and money spreading and building a complete set of interstate highways and transit system sufficient enough to communicate states and economic centers. While American spent most of their time driving, and paying for high gas costs, other nations are still developing plans to extend their train systems.
High-speed rail system projected corridors, Courtesy of US DOT
Strong economies need alternative and efficient ways of communication, spending for a High-Speed Rail System should become one of the US top priorities. Although the US infrastructure needs attention and reconditioning efforts, the government should start pro-actively moving forward to establish the US High-Speed Rail System in a hurry.
California: The First High Speed Rail System?
Planning to have a first section of the corridor ready, in California, they have approved a nearly $10 billion budget to start building their High-Speed Rail. California is planning an 800-mile high-speed rail service connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco into a two and a half hour trip. The benefits will be directly on their citizens: Creating more than 300,000 jobs, stimulating contractor's business, reducing fuel consumption, promoting a better air quality, and having their travel time cut significantly. U.S. government has plans and additional funds have been designated to a complete US High-Speed Rail System, but they are still far away from becoming a reality. In the meantime, California will try to push and become the leaders on High-Speed Rail System implementation.
What are your thoughts about it? Do you think it is necessary to have a high-speed rail system? Does the money need to be invested in repairs and maintenance of highways instead of having it spent on a train system?
Comments
It is a Necessity due to growing population and finding ways to keep moving, moreover, sometimes the other transportation systems can not carry the amount of people in a train.
It is very Convenient when the weather is too bad and another systems are not available. moreover with the last problem in the air transportation, the system could be great.
It a necessity and convenient as the High-Speed Rail System have been proven profitable, clean (less cars on the roads), beneficial for long commutes and time saving and space saving regarding less cars on the roads.
It is like the NJ-NY Metro system, extended to the country, but with more speed and capacity.
After having used the high speed rail in Europe, especially in Germany where there is practically no city or town, large or small, not served by the passenger trains (which is why one can actually drive on most of the Autobahn as fast as one wants to without any serious traffic jams), my opinion is: absolutely a necessity because:
1. it would take a lot of traffic off the highways which would relieve the congestions (and make a lot of highway widening projects unnecessary);
2. it would significantly reduce the amount of energy necessary to take a person from point A to point B;
3. due to above, and especially since most of this rail system would have to be electric, it would reduce pollutions and everybody’s carbon footprint (and there is at least nothing wrong with reducing pollutions and carbon footprint regardless of whether you believe in human contribution to global warming or not)
4. of course, it’s also a convenience (what’s wrong with that?) of not having to drive to and from the airport and having to arrive there 1 – 1.5 hours before the flight, then wait for your luggage which usually eliminates whatever speed advantage the air travel may have compared to rail, not to mention convenience of not having to drive, period.
Among other things, without a high speed rail network we may look more and more like a 3rd world country… although that depends on the observer
I think Its about time. Now they finally cut their wings and realised they are now behind in high speed rail technology. Definitely there will be mass shortage of specialist railways engineers and builders in a coming years.
In Asia, especially in Hong Kong is now gearing toward a so called a “red-dragon monster” high speed railway that 12 car train journey takes only 4 hrs to Beijing and 2 hrs to Shanghai from new Western Kowloon Terminal station in Hong Kong (XRL). These will soon to happen by year 2015 together with worth of billions of extension and new network of MTR in HK. .
No longer necessary and convenience. US should have think ten times, since US economic situation is still unstable or not rocovered from their economic problems.
50 years ago the same question [necessity or convenience] was asked of the interstate highway system [and that took over 30 years to complete] and 150 years ago it was the trans-continental rail; airports along the northeast corridor are at/near capacity so an alternative is needed initially there. Let’s just hope it does not take as long.
If there are high-speed rail system, most travelers would like to take train instead of plane account for the insecurity of airplane and strict body scan in the airport.
We should only do this if it makes sense financially. In many areas we do not have population densities that will support it. Just becasue it’s done in Asia, doesn’t make it worthwhile or reasonable. The culture there is very different from the west. If a private company wants to do it with private money, then it may not be a bad idea. If it will require the government to fund it, it’s probably another boondoggle.
What is the problem that is being solved by high-speed rail? You need to say waht it is. Is it for economic reasons, namely that it costs too much to travel from point A to B? Is it for convenience, namely it takes too long to travel?In either case, I think that leaping to high-speed rail as a solution would be risky. It is very expensive.
I think it would be better to try to find a way to use the extensive, existing infrastructure more efficiently. I’m talking about the nation’s interstate highways. For the same money, automobiles could be developed that were “driverless” and could merge themselves onto the highways. The resulting radio controlled line of cars would resemble a train and probably go just as fast. A second idea: most medians could be paved to handle “rails on wheels” bus systems, with each overpass retrofitted with a concourse. Stairs and an elevator would lower passengers down to the buses.
There are far more possibilities, but in general I think that we should look to see how we can make better use of what we have before we scrap the whole lot for a flashy, unproven, idea. The interstate highway system is a huge, known resource; it just needs for us to develop better ways of using it.
This is always an interesting and costly debate. Comparisons to other countries while well meaning can be costly in the end. European countries, cities as well have long been based on walking to find needs within a reasonable distance. The United States suffers in most areas from Urban Sprawl and now the question becomes, once I get there, how do I get to where I am really going?
The major congestion on the highways is not due to the traveling public, we cannot ignore the thousands of trucks that create a life line of raw materials, food and other goods to factories, stores and other centers of commerce to be turned into other goods or sold and yet again other destinations. The majority of business growth the backbone of our economy is found along major highways. Abandoning these vital thoroughfares in preference to high speed rail would be catastrophic in time.
Who said anything about *abandoning* the highways?
And why is it that so many people (not just commenters here) assume that putting public money toward rail is Bad Bad Big Government, but don’t mind at all that the highway system (and thus, indirectly, the trucking, vehicle manufacturing, and oil sectors) is completely subsidized? Argue against rail in terms of practicality or relative cost regardless of source if you want, but to oppose purely on “government spending”grounds is just hypocritical. Why do we complain that AMTRAK isn’t self-sufficient when we don’t require the same of the highway system?
Unfortunately it is all economics in this day and age. We have not had a Federal Highway budget for years now, our infrastructure is crumbling, bridges collapsing and only the most dangerous are being repaired.
Billions of dollars spent on high speed rail without the companion infrastructure of light rail would be better spent upgrading, modernizing and making safe our existing system.
Personally I am all for privatizing our highway system, there are numerous design/build/finance projects in process / under construction or in operation already.
I think this would be another transport revolution. Surely, it can provide employment across the country. However US High Speed Rail System should not be built on a comparison with Europe or Asia. The traveling distances involved in US are larger as compared to Rail Systems serving Europe or Asia from the viewpoint of passenger capacity. For instance, in Hong Kong-Shanghai, the number of passengers to be carried on the same length route are much higher than it could ever be imagined in US for the same length route. Rail systems are better choice for high density population areas/cities from economic viewpoint
Many great points were brought up in the comments following this article. I have traveled around Germany many times by train, but only once using a high-speed train. Coming from the U.S. I find this system very impressive.
I think building a high-speed rail system in the U.S. is a matter of necessity. Why? In the end, I think it comes down to being able to stay competitive. There is some level of need for high-speed rail in this country, so it only makes sense to build as much of a system that can be allowed instead of sitting back and watching Europe and Asia make great strides in this area. There are American companies that contribute a great deal to other countrys’ rail development, but to be truly competitive we need to have the ability to implement our own efficient national high-speed rail structure. I think in the future you would see more and more technologies developed that cross over between the automotive and rail industries. I think this would also add to the competitiveness of the U.S. auto industry.
That being said, I think we need to tread carefully, slowly in the beginning. Find the one largest market route in the U.S. and focus on making that a profitable model system, then expand outward. Some of the conveniences are obvious and many were mentioned in the article’s comments section.
Necessity. There are certian public goods on which government needs to lead.High speed rail is one of them. Mass transit in many forms is a very responsible way to spend tax $’s.
This is always an interesting and costly debate. Comparisons to other countries while well meaning can be costly in the end. European countries, cities as well have long been based on walking to find needs within a reasonable distance. The United States suffers in most areas from Urban Sprawl and now the question becomes, once I get there, how do I get to where I am really going?
The major congestion on the highways is not due to the traveling public, we cannot ignore the thousands of trucks that create a life line of raw materials, food and other goods to factories, stores and other centers of commerce to be turned into other goods or sold and yet again other destinations. The majority of business growth the backbone of our economy is found along major highways. Abandoning these vital thoroughfares in preference to high speed rail would be catastrophic in time.
I hate the current plan in California to start the first 60 miles between nowhere and anyplace your are not going. Bad plan…get a starter line going somewhere like LA to Disneyland or SF to San Jose…first!
Having completed one very successful mass transit/rail project in Boston, its success depended upon the availability of parking plus well designed inter-modal transfer of buses, cars, trucks and pedestrians in station areas. I supervised an urban design team that concentrated on these and other issues.
What is missing in planning within most every transit project in the US is the strength of the fundamental love affair between drivers and their automobile. Engineers and planners need to take off their rose colored glasses and analyze just exactly what it will take for people to either leave their car at home, or fight the traffic to the station, find it easy to park at a reasonable price, safe to walk to the station, and repeat the entire process when they return.
Another major factor that gets overlooked is limitations in high speed rail attributable to an existing rail system designed in the 1930’s when “high speed” was for 45mph around curves.
Unless “High Speed” gets lots of money for new right-of-way, it must be limited to restricted speeds at curves, even with super elevation, and cars that pivot (supposedly).
Semens is being litigated in just about every high speed super duper train it produces. The darn things just aren’t so fast as they claim, and they don’t pivot without falling off the track.