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April 03, 2012
High Speed Rail in America: Some things our European cousins do quite well.
And so we should take that hint. Why can't we take a more earnest stab at high-speed rail? Three of our builder clients (and a 4th targeted one) are at once encouraged, skeptical and curious about this Reuters story of yesterday: New California High-Speed Rail Plan Cuts Cost. Kudos for Governor Moonbeam, also in office when I was in college. The article begins:
(Reuters) - California officials on Monday unveiled a major overhaul of a controversial plan to build a high-speed rail system in the state, slashing the cost by some $30 billion, to $68.4 billion, and addressing other criticisms of the massive project.
The new plan must now receive a final blessing from the California High Speed Rail Authority before going to the state legislature, which has to approve the release of the first chunk of the nearly $10 billion in rail bond funds voters approved in 2008.
The state must greenlight the spending and sell the first of the bonds to obtain $3.3 billion in federal matching funds and start construction in the fall as planned.
White House press conference Rah-Rah Exhibit "A" in early April 2009, 3 years ago. C'mon, guys.
Posted by JD Hull at April 3, 2012 06:17 PM
Comments
Surely you are dealing with a greater distance and more space for budget airlines to squeeze in the US.
You can chuck a rock from Amsterdam and hit a guy in Hamburg in Europe.
I hope California is not just taking a leaf from the UK's deparment of transport and planning on putting out a press release every 6 months saying "this time we are serious about high speed rail, honest, we mean it, why would someone fly to glasgow when they can spend 2 days on the train"
Posted by: Duncan King at April 4, 2012 11:05 AM
Duncan--
You are right about distances.
The thinking overall in colonies seems to be light-rails for shorter trips between closer-together cities, mainly on US coasts. Between some Midwest venues. The map hits the main areas. CA, SE and NE corridors....
What's in place now is very bad, except for some of NE.
HO
Posted by: Holden Oliver at April 4, 2012 03:59 PM