[andyt]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Commuter rail works great in Vancouver, but I'm pretty sure it's subsidized. Our city-to-city passenger rail system (VIA Rail) costs as much as a flight. Never figured that one out.

They lose a fortune on the West Coast Express. But people are pushing for an Inter Urban between Chilliwack and Surrey. I believe the tracks are still there. It would also be subsidized, but then so is car travel.

VIA is just for tourists who want to see the country.

I guess passenger rail only makes sense back east.

[Bruce_the_vii]

I think transport is one of those areas in which everything is subsidized.

I read that the Chinese had built 8,000 km of high speed rail in the last four years. The problem is it's too expensive for the 1.3 billion.

[andyt]

It takes government to do projects like this. And the question is what is the alternative - what costs the least money for the best results. It's part of building a viable state, good old fashioned socialism.

The railways in Canada and the US were subsidized too. Built with private money, sure, but given huge grants for it.

[bootlegga]

Thanos Thanos:

Under these conditions it's no wonder effective passenger rail travel is essentially dead in North America.

Even in countries where rail travel is used extensively, service is atrocious - try travelling on British Rail sometime - the service is terrible and many of the staff are incredibly rude.

[bootlegga]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

On another forum I'm defending high speed rail for California from morons who think that airlines and highways are just fine and that California's existing infrastructure which is overtaxed with 40 million people will be fine with the 70 million people we're projected to have by 2050.

Effective passenger rail is on a come back for the simple fact that many metropolitan areas are built out and there's no place for them to build additional highways or airports. The only option left for growing capacity is rail. Add to that the fact that with air travel security anymore being what it is - high speed rail for trips of up to 500 miles is actually faster - point to point - than air is.

The other advantage of high speed rail is that it runs on dedicated rails and does not share a right of way with freight.

As high speed rail becomes profitable with increasing populations I expect to see private industry moving into it. A Texas project was going to happen but lawsuits funded by goddam Southwest Airlines killed it and set a precedent, for now, that is keeping private money out of the high speed rail business.

High speed rail is the future of travel I think - unfortunately in many parts of North America the density to support it just isn't there. I seriously think governments need to step up and offer incentives/tax breaks/loans to get construction of high speed rail going.

[BartSimpson]

bootlegga bootlegga:

High speed rail is the future of travel I think - unfortunately in many parts of North America the density to support it just isn't there. I seriously think governments need to step up and offer incentives/tax breaks/loans to get construction of high speed rail going.

HSR is fine for intermediate distances of 200 to as much as 600 miles.

So in the USA the best places for it are:

* San Francisco to LA/San Diego (maybe with a connector to Las Vegas?).

* Boston to Washington with maybe a dogleg to Pittsburg.

* Miami to Atlanta

* Houston to Dallas/Fort Worth with links to Austin and etc.

* St. Louis to Chicago.

* Seattle to Vancouver BC

* Phoenix to Tucson maybe connecting to LA

In Canada it'd be:

* Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal (just dreaming - I'd connect this to Boston, too)

* Vancouver to Seattle (maybe connecting to Portland)

* Calgary to Edmonton is just a natural with maybe a connector to Vancouver someday.

[Thanos]

Edmonton to Ft. McMurray would pay for itself in a few years too, and take massive amounts of traffic off of the incredibly dangerous one-lane highway linking the two cities. The problem here in Alberta is that we have a small-time parochial-thinking government with no foresight or postive vision of the future at all, so this is one that's solidly stuck in the 'never gonna happen' category.

[BartSimpson]

Thanos Thanos:

Edmonton to Ft. McMurray would pay for itself in a few years too, and take massive amounts of traffic off of the incredibly dangerous one-lane highway linking the two cities. The problem here in Alberta is that we have a small-time parochial-thinking government with no foresight or postive vision of the future at all, so this is one that's solidly stuck in the 'never gonna happen' category.

You never know. Sacramento is perenially hamstrung with lackluster leadership yet, sometimes, they manage to get something right.

As a conservative, I will say that the problem in Alberta is probably that they're too conservative and too frugal in some respects.

'Penny wise and pound foolish' is the old saying.

Meaning that by not spending some money on infrastructure *now* they're going to be spending a lot more later to address a predictable problem.

Kind of like the government of New Orleans niggling for decades over the costs of proper levees and flood protection only to have those costs eclipsed by the damage Katrina did to them. Another good example would be the cities in Japan that quibbled about tsunami protection and that got wiped out while one visionary mayor in one town doggedly insisted on protecting his town and the costs of what he did have now been eclipsed by the lives and property he saved.

http://dcnonl.com/article/id44406

Rail projects often fall into that same category. Rarely are they being built for a problem that exists today, mostly they're built for an opportunity that will exist perhaps even decades from now.

The US transcontinental railroad, were it to be built today, would be derided by Republicans as a profligate waste with the railroad being built in places where no one lives and then the Democrats would hate it because it was taking money away from things 'people really need'. I hate to say it, but the USA is just not the visionary it once was and I am beginning to wonder if perhaps our time in the sun is coming to a close not because of any external force, but because of our own complacency and moral rot.

[Dragon-Dancer]

I would agree with that, the US used to be a place people aspired to go for it's freedom and innovation.

These days it certainly appears to be growing more protectionist and regressive than I've ever seen.

I've never really been a big fan of the US as a nation but that may be because I've grown up with the US as it has become rather than as it was. Somewhere along the way it's lost it's can-do attitude.

Unfortunately, I don't think there are that many visionaries or innovators around up here in Canada anymore either.

[EyeBrock]

Dragon-Dancer Dragon-Dancer:

I would agree with that, the US used to be a place people aspired to go for it's freedom and innovation.

These days it certainly appears to be growing more protectionist and regressive than I've ever seen.

I've never really been a big fan of the US as a nation but that may be because I've grown up with the US as it has become rather than as it was. Somewhere along the way it's lost it's can-do attitude.

Unfortunately, I don't think there are that many visionaries or innovators around up here in Canada anymore either.

You must still be crying about the election oh-anti-Yank Liberal. Silly post.

[ShepherdsDog]

I'ver used the HSR in Japan ans Taiwan both. They're great, but still under utilized. Most of the masss transit here is interconnected city buses feed into subway lines which connect to train stations which have island wide buses. Kaohsiung International and Taipei municipal airport all have subway stops and Taipei Taoyuan International(CKS) has regular shuttle buses you catch at the train/MRT/HSR station.

[QBall]

xerxes xerxes:

How could have gone on for 16 hours? I know she's a woman, but that's still a long time.

It does boggle the mind. I can't stand being on the phone for 5 minutes. How you keep your jaw flapping for 16 hours defies logic. Someone should call Guiness and see it qualifies as a world record.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

QBall QBall:

xerxes xerxes:

How could have gone on for 16 hours? I know she's a woman, but that's still a long time.

It does boggle the mind. I can't stand being on the phone for 5 minutes. How you keep your jaw flapping for 16 hours defies logic. Someone should call Guiness and see it qualifies as a world record.

It doesn't

[andyt]

MY guess is she didn't talk for 16 hours straight. She just made a lot of calls and talked loudly on the phone and got agitated when asked to keep it down.

[ShepherdsDog]

obviously these people would go nuts on a Chinese train as everyone shouts when they talk here.