Can high speed rail work in the United States?

Need more studies

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Can high speed rail work in the United States?

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For very specific corridors, i.e, the NE/East coast from Boston down to Hampton Roads, Texas triangle, California.....maybe.

Outside of those types (basically where light rail, etc. already exists), I don't understand how the massive costs of building the infrastructure for a high speed rail network would be justified. For most of the country, air travel is more than sufficient for transit between urban centers. The only people driving very long distances, such as the example from OP (Chicago to NY) are doing so because they want to. Air travel can get you from Chicago to NY in two hours as well.

Not without slave labor

Don't follow the Commiefornia plan.

LINK

Been working on it for 15 years and project another $100 Billion to finish over the initial price tag of $35 billion.

Is there a huge unmet demand for travel between Chicago and NY? Why wouldn’t high speed rail end up with same hassle as airport?

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No, because it would have to be operated/subsidized by the government and the government is terrible at everything.

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They’re great at stealing money from taxpayers.

"No airport hassle"

lulz

Does this twat think the train is going to swing by his moms basement and pick him up?

Americans are inherently independent and want to drive themselves. We don’t want to be packed into a train and go where everyone else is going. The rest of the world has that engrained into their being, they generally don’t have the independence trait we do.

So even if the US had a high speed rail network and a, let’s call it “Last Mile” network, Americans would still rather drive.


Here’s an example. I’ve traveled from Houma to Hammond a bunch recently. That about 1.5-2 hours. A little shorter than Paris to London by train. But I’d much rather get in my vehicle and drive there when I’m ready, arrive when I want, stop where I want, etc.

Every time this comes up I say the same thing, and I will say it again now:

We shouldn't even consider trying to fund a large scale commuter rail system in this country until we take care of the rest of our aging infrastructure that is currently falling down around our ears.

Taking a train ride is fine and good, but not if you have potholes large enough to lose a Volkswagen in, traffic getting worse by the day, and fifty thousand bridges across the country that have been deemed structurally deficient. The untold billions of dollars a commuter rail system will undoubtedly cost can be put to much better use elsewhere.

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In most parts of the U.S., it cannot work because populations are too spread out and cities too far apart. This makes car and air travel better in most places.

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This.

People bitch and moan that Europe does rail so well, but there's a big reason it works in Europe.

Cities and towns are designed very differently in Europe, with robust metro/subway systems that most major U.S. cities simply don't have. You could live in Paris, Rome, or Madrid for an entire year without ever needing to get inside a car. And smaller towns were built much more compactly, that there is little need to use cars on a daily basis.

Sure, we could have high-speed rail connecting Birmingham and Atlanta, but once you arrived in either city, you're still going to need your own car. Things are too spread out, and public transportation is woefully inadequate.