Why do people act like the only travel they ever do is from New York to LA?
Imagine a HSR train between... oh, I don't know, NY and Philly? Or upgrade the Accela from Boston to DC? Or what if we did the Texas T - Houston / San Antonio / Austin / Dallas? I-95 runs from New York to Miami. Surely we could get some use value out of a parallel rail route.
Dozens of viable options. But we can't do them because we are a Car Culture.
Going to start saying that the US is too spread out for a multi-lane highway system to work here like the Autobahn did in Germany.
But yeah, a lot of existing highway corridors make sense as rail corridors, or in many cases actually parallel an existing conventional rail corridor because the cities it's connecting only grew because of their rail connections.
Also hilarious is the Republicans trying to make fun of HSR by comparing Texas to Europe when there is a private company, Texas Central, who thinks that they can construct a private high speed line from Dallas to Houston that would be able to be profitable, and pretty much every Texas Republican politician has supported them. There may be a chance they break ground before the end of the year.
Yeah, I know famously delayed, but it seems like they actually have almost all of the necessary permits, and the FRA approval. I think they basically just need to finish acquiring right of way to start building.
That's been an ongoing struggle, as municipalities have been polarized against rail. They neither want the rail for their districts nor do they want business to be diverted by a rail line going through another district.
Yeah, I've been following it a bit. Definitely seems like the inertia is Texas Central's favor for the moment. The NIMBYs kind of seem to be flailing at this point. I think there's a pretty good chance they break ground next year, I have serious doubts about this year, but they may start being able to hire.
Imagine a HSR train between... oh, I don't know, NY and Philly? Or upgrade the Accela from Boston to DC? Or what if we did the Texas T - Houston / San Antonio / Austin / Dallas? I-95 runs from New York to Miami. Surely we could get some use value out of a parallel rail route.
Dozens of viable options. But we can't do them because we are a Car Culture.
Going to start saying that the US is too spread out for a multi-lane highway system to work here like the Autobahn did in Germany.
But yeah, a lot of existing highway corridors make sense as rail corridors, or in many cases actually parallel an existing conventional rail corridor because the cities it's connecting only grew because of their rail connections.
Also hilarious is the Republicans trying to make fun of HSR by comparing Texas to Europe when there is a private company, Texas Central, who thinks that they can construct a private high speed line from Dallas to Houston that would be able to be profitable, and pretty much every Texas Republican politician has supported them. There may be a chance they break ground before the end of the year.
I have been hearing this promise since 2012
Yeah, I know famously delayed, but it seems like they actually have almost all of the necessary permits, and the FRA approval. I think they basically just need to finish acquiring right of way to start building.
That's been an ongoing struggle, as municipalities have been polarized against rail. They neither want the rail for their districts nor do they want business to be diverted by a rail line going through another district.
Yeah, I've been following it a bit. Definitely seems like the inertia is Texas Central's favor for the moment. The NIMBYs kind of seem to be flailing at this point. I think there's a pretty good chance they break ground next year, I have serious doubts about this year, but they may start being able to hire.
Well, fingers crossed. I have friends in Dallas and I'd love to take a quick train ride up rather than a long drive or an obnoxiously difficult plane