They are all over Europe and Asia and one of the best ways to travel. Cheap, quick, comfortable. Politicians needs to get with it and stop being so damn conservative.

 

Lest geographically centralized. Where would you run them from/to? We would need too many and they would need to travel too large of distances. You can't run them on tracks with other types of trains.

 

Geographically undesirable. I repeat Floyd's question, where would you put them?



If you're going interstate transportation, I'm fine with paying $69 each way for a Southwest flight from Nashville to Chicago. It's faster (and possibly cheaper) than driving 10 hours for me.



If you're talking intrastate transportation...

Southern California - way too densely populated. The train would be stopping every 2 minutes. Amtrak works fine.



Chicago / New York - subways seem to work fine for shuttling large amounts of people with frequent stops, and there isn't room for bullet tracks to be laid.



Nashville - Downtown/metro area has approximately 7 major suburbs within 20-30 miles, in every direction. Southwest, Southeast, Northeast, West, East, etc. While it would be great for each city to have one, it doesn't seem real feasible as you'd have 7 different trains and 7 different sets of tracks. They've only recently started using existing tracks for passenger trains as an expirement, but I don't know how well it's being utilized. Once you get to Downtown Nashville, you then have to find a bus to take you to the area you work in. 20 min by train + 10-20 min waiting for bus + 10-15 min riding on bus... it might be cheaper, but in the end it would just take longer. How much is your time worth? Don't pay gas for your car, but double your transit time?

 

Agreed. They're starting to come about here in the states. California's High Speed Rail seems to be chugging along (p.s. thank your Florida Governor for rejecting HSR money so we could get more of it for ours) and I honestly can't wait. I don't buy the density argument. Sure, you'll never see HSR in Nebraska and that's fine. However, there is some reasonably densely populated in the US that would benefit from HSR. For example, San Francisco to LA. SFO is running out of runway expansion space and airline traffic between the cities continues to expand. For such relatively short distances HSR makes sense. Sure, in theory, a train would run slower than a plane, but you have to take into consideration time driving to the airport, paying for parking, checking in, airport security etc. By the time that's all said and done, you'd be better off on a train. There are other areas in the US that I feel would benefit from HSR. Places like the Pacific Northwest, Chicagoland, Northeast Corridor (which already has a somewhat high speed rail, Acela.)



HSR is expensive, but so was the Interstate Highway System. You also need to take into consideration how heavily subsidized Airlines are. Boeing is subsidized by the government for plane manufacturing and so are plane companies. Those cheap plane tickets do come at a taxpayer cost. So to answer your question, why we don't see HSR in the US? Lots of reasons. HSR is looked down upon as "European Socialism" by many people and politicians. Never mind that one of the big proponents of HSR is Republican Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. Nevermind that Amtrak currently makes $0.307 revenue per passenger mile, uses 1,745 BTUs energy consumption per passenger mile. Compared to Domestic Airlines: $0.130 revenue and 2,931 BTUs. Public perception is what it is, and I feel that it will change over time. The Auto and Airline lobby seem more powerful which I think is strange since large companies like General Motors and General Electric make locomotives, I think they need to push harder. We need to push harder on the cost effectiveness, if we can convince the public about the facts, then the Republicans* won't have a leg to stand on. Then we will start seeing more High Speed Rail and Maglev.



Rail can always be built. We already have plenty of rail already laid out, and if we need to build more, there's always imminent domain. Ugly as it may be, it's always being used for constant freeway widening. Then there's always elevating it via Maglev.



*I mention Republicans because they are the party that the majority are against any sort of rail.

 

I like the concept, but I still think it won't work here.



The Pacific Northwest for example. Where would it go? Seattle to Portland? You can drive there in just over 2 hours. You can probably beat a train even if it was traveling the speed of light unless it ONLY stopped in Seattle and Portland. So what I'm saying, is you might as well use a regular train, because travel time is minor vs. time spent at stations already. And the trains between Seattle and Portland are about as popular as they ever would be already.



The USA, especially the west coast, is not set up to do a damn thing on foot. Most of Asia and Europe are. You literally have everything you need within walking distance in a lot of places there. That normally isn't the case here at all. So, you end up somewhere, then have to take 5 different busses to get 10 miles away to whatever you need to see or do. Not to mention that the busses often don't go where you need them to at all, and if they do they often have schedules that make using them incredibly impractical.



Public transportation doesn't work in most of the US. That doesn't mean that it can't, but it doesn't. It's partly a problem with the transportation itself, but more of a problem with the way our infrastructure is designed. You should never need to travel as far as is expected of us in our daily lives. The average commute (driving yourself) in the US is just under 50 minutes total. That means most of us live way too far away from where we work to legitimately use any public transportation to commute. Telecommuting makes a lot more sense for those jobs where it is appropriate, especially since a lot of jobs would function as well or better if you never went to the office.



If there was a bullet train from coast to coast it could make sense as long as it got you from one side to the other in a day or less including stops. It's practical use would still be limited unless you could at least get to the state you wanted to visit. Really, you would need to be able to get to any other major city of your choosing within about 12 hours, or people just would never use it for long trips, and the advantages aren't there for short trips.

 

I disagree, the proposed Pacific Northwest Corridor would go from Vancouver, BC to Eugene, OR. It is basically a "modernization" of the Amtrak Cascades. Ridership on this line was 850,000 last year. It's one of the busiest routes outside of NEC and California. So obviously someone is using it HSR isn't going to replace cars nor airplanes. It never will, and I don't think that it's the intent. It's intended to supplement air and car travel. HSR is a happy medium where car trips would be too long, and plane trips are too short. I see where you're coming from in regards to the PNW. If it's going to make so many stops then it might not be worth it, but ridership looks relatively good for Amtrak Cascades.



I am of a different mindset. One of, "If they build it, they will come." The automobile came first, then came suburbia as we know it. Not the other way around. We have in some ways reached our limitations with air and car travel. If we started building good, not half-assed, transit systems, then people will start seeing the benefits and will want to live in a Transit-Oriented-District. Not everyone, but many will see the benefits. I'll be dammed to say that I just looooove commuting, because I don't. I love the freedom my car offers me to run errands when I want to, visit a friend's house, or just taking a fun drive to the coast/river/etc. However, commuting is one thing that rail can easily supplement auto travel, and it's becoming a huge success here in the Bay Area. I'm not the only one that feels this way.



Another thing, most major American cities are built around railroads. Even here in podunk Northern California, rail used to be the only way to get around. All downtown areas are built around their respective rail depot. Certainly things have been built out, but they can just as easily be built in and up.



That's more on the subject of commuter rail, and I think we're mostly referring to high speed rail. My question is, how would this be treated any different than airports? You still take a car or airporter to the airport. Instead, you would drive to the high speed rail station or take sort of an airporter to it. I don't see how this is any different. I just believe that HSR can compete well with short to mid range trips.

 

Good debate. Interested in hearing/reading more. SFO to LA might actually be nice, if it would be twice as fast as driving. It would work better in places like that with public transportation... but many places outside of TX/CA/NY (major cities) don't have that much public transit. It would have to be large cities that are not too close, not too far. I honestly can't see many good scenarios besides LA <-> Frisco.

 

I don't think it has as much to do with places that have public transportation (although most large cities do anyways), rather areas with a good amount of airline traffic to nearby cities. Here are the proposed lines:



http://www.fra.dot.gov/rpd/passenger/2243.shtml



(edited with a more updated map)

 

They are putting one in from Chicago to St. Louis.

 

Denver metro area needs one ASAP for the many ski areas along I 70. Traffic is insane during the winter months, sometimes taking 6 to 7 hours of stop and go for a distance that should take an hour and a half tops.