USA Will Invest in High-Speed Train to Fight Climate Change::The USA Will Invest in High-Speed Train to Fight Climate Change - US President Joe Biden announced in a speech on December 9, 2023 that they are carrying out the first high-speed train projects in US history. These projects are across America
I’ll believe it when I see it …
The US is extremely far behind the rest of the developed world and even much of the developing world at this point. It will take decades to catch up, let alone become a leader.
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empires falling, history on repeat
Who cares how long it’s going to take, it still needs to be done. And the only way to do it is to start.
Even then it’ll probably just be from one town to another very close by thus really only useable for a small subset of people. We need trans continental high speed railways not puddle jumpers
No, really not. It would be great for those of us who prefer that solution but let’s pick the right tool for the job. I believe the current rule of thumb is high speed rail beats flying for cities up to 500 miles apart. Let’s focus on those. Hopefully we end up with an interconnected system as the preferred way to travel between those cities and so some of us can do long distance rail, but there will always be a threshold where flying is cheaper, easier, faster
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These projects are part of an $10 billion investment
California’s HSR system come in at $80 billion for 520 miles, or $154 million per mile. Amtrak estimates that it would cost $500 million per mile to turn its Northeast Corridor route into a true high-speed system. source
For $10 billion, we are talking an additional 20 to 65 miles of high speed rail to be built. This is basically nothing…
The worst part is that it usually follows well known cycle of:
- project is estimated at $10b, government assigns $10b
- private companies spend it on consultants and analysis, little gets built
- government agrees to invest another $5b but requires cuts to the initial scope
- with reduced scope projected passengers numbers drop, project is less attractive
- repeat until cost is 1000% of the initial estimate and usefulness is 0. cancel project
Most of this is to fund studies and the rest is probably to cover overruns. Is it political for election season? Yes, but still a step in a positive direction. We’re not talking infrastructure week here.
There’s ~$34 million in there to study new routes. The $3 billion of this going to CAHSR will:
- Fund six electric trains for testing and use
- Fund design and construction of trainset facilities
- Fund design and construction of the Fresno station
- Fund final design and right-of-way acquisition for the Merced and the Bakersfield extensions
- Fund construction in the Central Valley
The HSR going through the Central Valley of Cali is INSANE. the bridge and strip of it is infrastructure that area and region has legitimately never seen. I keep telling all of my friends and family here in Cali that once you can travel from Stockton to Bakersfield in 45-1 hour it’ll completely change the region. The massive economic boom from just the construction alone will be huge, but then the effect after will be felt for generation.
And make the rest of the country subsidize it.
Gee, thanks.
We subsidize literally every other state. Fuck outta here.
California receives less than it contributes to the federal government. It subsidises other states.
Lol yeah screw the us government helping it’s citizens. Also, there has been funding for other cities to expand their public transportation.
Even better, I just hate that people are crapping all over making steps in a positive direction.
After decades of promises and zero high speed rails in use in the US, why believe it?
Because it’s wasting money.
And we seriously doubt the claimed positive impacts.
Yeah HSR is cutting edge and unproven technology that hasn’t been successfully implemented in Europe, Japan and China.
It’s squandering billions. End.
Drop in the bucket, I’m curious how much it would take to make most of the US/NA traversable by high speed rail
Depends on what you mean by most.
- most of the population is quite achievable. Send a little time at https://www.ushsr.com/
- most of the geography, trillions, and we couldn’t afford to keep it operating
I really think that confusing this is a common mistake. People claim high speed rail is impossible in the US because we’re big (and ignoring China, eu), but we have plenty of cities, and most of them are clustered. High speed rail is great for cities within a few hundred miles of each other. We got those, and that’s most of the population
It’s specious to take scenarios high speed rail doesn’t do well at and claiming that it means it can’t work. Let’s apply a little intelligence here’d and use the right technology for the right scenario
What’s after “trillions”?
Think if we instead of giving trillions of dollars to the Ukraine, spent it on our own country. If we spent all that money on this project alone it might actually be beneficial to our people
Allowing Russia to conquer our allies will hardly get us high speed rail. Furthermore, the vast majority of lethal aid for Ukraine actually pays for US industry and US jobs. Congress approves money for Javelin missile production, US contractors produce the components and assemble it, then the Javelins are sent to Ukraine to blow up Russian invaders.
There is visual confirmation of Ukraine destroying over 13,000 Russian vehicles, including over 2,500 Russian tanks. Click the link, every single example has a picture or video detailing Russia’s devastating losses.
Barack Obama tried to do the same thing: https://time.com/3100248/high-speed-rail-barack-obama/
While I would love for this to be a reality, I just don’t see it actually happening.
The way the US shows more progress is if the Democrats can stay in power for a long enough period of time. But the last time Dems had that kind of power was as far back as 2008. It makes you wonder if the only way Democrats can ever get into power is when a recession hits.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but with climate change in front of us, we actually don’t have time.
I’m incredibly nihilistic right now.
Climate change doesn’t matter when it’s lawyers and economists in charge, there’s money to be made… unfortunately.
Eh, it was predicted we would die because the population growth was exceeding our ability to farm food, but then out of necessity the industrial revolution happened.
I think we are predicting we will die but out of necessity we will make the necessary changes to save ourselves just in time. Not just stopping emissions (this will only help slow the worsening, since we might be past the point of no return by the time we do this), but also carbon capture to remove the CO2, while simultaneously seeding extra clouds with something like the salt water canons running on cargo ships, and other such tech to reflect the sun while we get to work on CO2 capture.
The CO2 will have to be sequestered back in the ground, so a method will have to be made to liquify and pump it back in, but it’s theoretically possible.
The CO2 will have to be sequestered back in the ground, so a method will have to be made to liquify and pump it back in, but it’s theoretically possible.
Not theoretical, they’re doing this as proof of concept at cement plants in Norway, they’re planning on pumping it into an aquifer under the artic ocean
We’re not undoing the atmospheric carbon or methane, and sequestration won’t stop the climate change done that will cause issues for 10s of thousands of years. That being said we will figure out survival and a path forward to not make it worse.
It’ll take the US decades to get high-speed rail up and running, especially with its culture of litigation, property rights, regulatory capture and politicised overregulation of threats to incumbents, not to mention Citizens United and the ability of the aforementioned incumbents to buy laws and regulations. By then, climate change will have won.
So, should we just give up then and not bother?
Oh good! I was hoping for some defeatism in the face of a relatively positive bit of news.
I wish them all the best! May this decision carry through administrations and the USA embrace fast, public transport once again.
At this point, Trump will probably win in '24 and immediately kill off the project
Getting more than a little annoyed by the political tennis, back and forth and nothing actually getting done because everything that is done gets undone as soon as the other party takes back control
i want this to be real. I’ve loved trains since i was a toddler. and as an adult Trains are some thicc power chungus
unfortunately the only trains left are either subways or commercial rails, yes there is Some passenger trains. But can you get to anywhere in americs on one? Not today, Not the infrastructure that will take decades to build and Not the follow up on promises made promises. kept…coughthebigdigbostoncough
(F40PH gang gang) back in my day we memed about objects, zoomers be all meta n shit. get out of my my head charles!
Amtrak is still a thing for passenger trains. It’s just that it’s slower than flying and just as expensive.
Flew my wife to L.A. for her birthday, easy peasy. Couple of hours by plane.
Amtrak?
Fastest is 26 hours and 13 minutes for $230 coach tickets. Private room for $580.
Amtrak is still a thing for passenger trains. It’s just that it’s slower than flying and just as expensive.
This is the core reason passenger rail has not become dominant in the US. The country is so physically large that planes do passenger rail’s job, but faster and at the same price point.
Instead, rail in the US is almost entirely bulk cargo as that makes a ton of sense. Cargo trains are cheaper than trucks/aircraft and the slower speed can be easily planned for.
It’s not just slower than flying, it’s slower than driving in most cases.
I just punched in a random 7 hour drive in the US. Amtrak would take 16 hours and cost 3x as much as one would spend in gas to take oneself and their SO on a trip. This isn’t even accounting for costs and time associated with getting to/from the station; whereas the car is door-to-door, faster, and cheaper.
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Acela is useful. We have one intercity rail line that is useful, has high ridership, is profitable, people choose to use, arguably faster than driving or flying, demand far outstrips supply. also the fastest but it’s not really fast enough to be called “high speed”
Will it though?
Wow. I’m so underwhelmed.
Hopefully they don’t pick internal systems that lock the train if you take it to a 3rd party repair business😆
What a piss poor article. It’s barely three paragraphs and contains basically no details. Here is the press briefing from the Dept of Transportation.
Wildly misleading title, USA has not made any concrete plans for the investment, and has a history of lying about everything.
Came to this thread for my daily dose of trite cynicism. Was not disappointed.
What about rails? You need rails first. Who is providing the land where rails will be built on?
But yeah, trains it is!
United States will never be able to achieve something like this because tiny ass governments of little weird counties all across the country will complain about having tracks run through their stupid shit hole
Run the tracks through your backyard then.
😂
