Matter of Time???

Post by **Crankmas** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 1:13 pm

Screw Cuba, Obama has released preliminary plans for High-Speed Railways- this has been needed in the US for over 50 years- leaner, cleaner transportation... very exciting and quite overdue in this country... Good Luck and lets get behind this POS on this one.

Post by **michaelarmand** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 5:02 pm

High-Speed rail would be a complete waste of money for 99% of America. We are not dense enough. And nobody is going to drive their car 10 miles to a train station, park, wait, take a train ride, then get off and take a bus or walk to your destination. Way faster and easier to just drive!

Post by **bcombs** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 5:11 pm

So then why are all the park and ride extensions so heavily utilized in larger cities?

If I had an option to sit in traffic for 50 miles or drive 10 and ride a train and surf the web for 40, I would opt for the train.

Post by **pkananen** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 5:37 pm

bcombs wrote:So then why are all the park and ride extensions so heavily utilized in larger cities?

If I had an option to sit in traffic for 50 miles or drive 10 and ride a train and surf the web for 40, I would opt for the train.

The larger cities probably occupy 1% in land area of the US...that is why.

Post by **bcombs** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 5:47 pm

I think there is another way to look at it though. I don't beleive that a high speed rail system would benefit america as it has / would the smaller european counties with our current layout. America's cities are built primarily on waterways because industry / transportation created a need to congregate and establish business and residence. So, if the rail is there, wouldn't you think the same thing would happen again?

Post by **pkananen** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 6:39 pm

bcombs wrote:I think there is another way to look at it though. I don't beleive that a high speed rail system would benefit america as it has / would the smaller european counties with our current layout. America's cities are built primarily on waterways because industry / transportation created a need to congregate and establish business and residence. So, if the rail is there, wouldn't you think the same thing would happen again?

Well, I personally think rail is a viable option, but it probably wouldn't work for a very large percentage of the land area of the US. Population wise, it would do better. For example, in Cinci I would love light rail that ran from downtown to oakley to mason, for example.

Post by **Crankmas** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 7:28 pm

it will probably end up being another broken promise like the rest of the obama sham- we don't have to limit or necessarily gear the effort towards autos though- it would be interesting to see if freight could undergo a systems restructure, we certainly changed things in order to distribute chinese manufactured products we could look at getting the majority of long haul freight redirected if the unions could get off their ass and the democratic party dick