Ride of the future: High-speed trains in America?
Filed under: Technology, Transportation
People love trains; they are fast and avoid all the hassles of traffic. But they aren't used in the U.S. like they are in Japan and much of Europe. Why? They are too slow.
Obama and a number of governors want to change that, with an $8 billion investment in high-speed rail using trains that go over 200 miles an hour. Not only could this reduce gridlock and our dependence on oil, it would cut pollution and create jobs.
So what's with the county executive, Scott Walker, in Milwaukee? He has been fighting light rail, creation of high speed rail between Milwaukee and Chicago and other efforts to update transportation for the city for many years. He insists that more buses are what we need. Finally last week, the 17-year dispute was decided thanks to Sen. Herb Kohl and Rep. David Obey. They quietly inserted a provision in the massive federal spending bill to hand 60% of the money for a downtown rail line and 40% to Milwaukee County for buses. President Barack Obama signed the $410 billion package into law last week.
It's about time. Walker just doesn't get it. In the 1950's people rode buses. In 2009 we want something faster and, frankly, a bit more exciting. After all, the Jetson's had flying cars in the 1960's, you would at least think the roads would be done by now. We certainly don't want buses. It's time to move forward with modern transportation in Milwaukee and across the country. I'm still hoping for a flying car.
Barbara Bartlein is the People Pro. For her FREE e-mail newsletter, please visit: The People Pro
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-18-2009 @ 5:54PM
oldkingshywy rumrunners alley said...
READ "'Holy Mosses" {Mosses New York highway Builders hall Of Fame}-) act of the early fifties thru 70's. Ala' - King Kong /Godzilla and friends [ make room for the autos everything else goes] destroyed mass transit, including the railroads, to build , the auto motive Kingdom , now that we know the kingdom of the auto sucks ,,,,time to scrap them and drop them all in the deepest part of the darkest abyss, in the oceans or maybe, even some black void [holes] in deep space?
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3-18-2009 @ 10:59PM
Richard said...
I think the biggest obstacle to high-speed trains is simply our weather. Yes, the french went more than 300 MPH in a specially tuned TGV. But it runs on a separate right-of-way, and they don't tend to have bad weather.
In a country (or an area of a country, namely New England) where we were without power for up to two (2) weeks at the BEGINNING of winter, due to an ice storm ... how are we supposed to run a high-speed train? How are we supposed to run a train at all?
Mind you - I'm in favour of high speed trains (although I've never done the Acela, I'll say that leaving France-on-the-border-with-Spain at 6 am and arriving with plenty of time for a 2 Pm flight out of Paris is just too fast. But enjoyable! And the food was even pretty good.
SO how are we going to fix the weather situation? Underground would be good (it's all electric, anyway) ... and you could do NYC to Chicago in 5, maybe six hours ... about the same time as a jet.
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4-21-2009 @ 2:43PM
George said...
I think we have a better chance of getting flying cars than high speed trains.
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