Is High Speed Rail A Good Idea
President Obama Supportive of High Speed Rail
During his 2010 Situation of the Union address President Obama once again affirmed his desire to build a high-speed rail system in the United States. With some obvious envy, President Obama has noted on several occasions how several countries, such as Japan, have had high accelerate rail for years while the United States chugs along with our outdated and dead AmTrak train system. But Japan also has a sky high population density and little room to build highways, and their cities are arranged in a corridor which is geographically suited for high speed rail. Part of the reason why Barack Obama is supportive of high run rail, at least in my mind, is because he is one of the first presidents to be raised in primarily heavily urbanized areas where mass transportation is heavily utilized and viewed favorably. Obviously, those in states without a planned high speed rail corridor will have little to gain from these services in terms of day to day transportation needs, even though they will be built with federal tax dollars. Furthermore, most of the high speed rails will be built in the eastern part of the United States despite the population center of the U.S. titillating southwest each year and despite many northeastern cities experiencing negative population growth. With global warming, much of the heavily populated cities in the northeast could be under water in half a century.
Riding on AmTrak is certainly an interesting experience, you can quite literally see into people’s backyards as the train travels by, chug along deep into urban areas at night and coast along in the morning as the sun peaks over the trees in farmland. High speed rail usually means you are zipping along in excessive of 200 km/h, such that you aren’t really able to make out great details of anything. While Europe has several high speed rail lines, this is because the United States went with building an interstate highway system in the 1950s and Europe after World War 2 sought to build up its stutter capacity. Indeed, powerful of the culture of the 1950’s arose due to the creation of the interstate highway system. Getting in your car and driving somewhere on a road trip is section of the American culture, worthy more so than the European culture. If you want to see Europe you get a rail pass and back pack around. Just because passenger rail travel worked in Europe does mean it will work the same way in the United States, especially as original green technologies are developed for cars.
So why do we need high speed rail?
Obviously, high race rail would compete with major airlines for highly traffic routes, such as the New York to Washington D.C. route. This would ease congestion on the tarmac and on the highways as the infrastructure in New England is crumbling. Airports will struggle to deal with an increasing number of passengers over the next decade. For the busy business passenger, high speed rail would compete effectively with air travel. President Obama has wanted to ensure that our nation’s transportation infrastructure stays up to the task of keeping us productive. And high speed rail when compared to gas burning cars is much more green.
But what about for everyday passengers who have a choice between air travel and train travel? Air travel was once reserved for only a certain number of wealthy passengers but has become accessible to the middle class for holiday and vacation disappear. While high speed trains would make train travel more competitive, I would assume that there would need to be major improvements in train stations to accommodate a large number of passengers. President Obama’s plan lays the groundwork for providing for dozens of highly traveled routes, such as around the East Coast as well as a massive high speed rail line from San Francisco to Anaheim. Though I suspect that it will be years before any high-speed lines are built.
Is High Race Rail the Future?
President Obama sees something he liked overseas, and wanted to bring it to America as he believes that it is the future of transportation. However, he may have underestimated Americans’ adore for the automobile. When designing Disneyland in Anaheim, California, Walt Disney saw a prototype monorail in Europe being used for public transportation, and he installed the monorail in his theme park hoping that it would spur use of the monorail across the United States. He was disappointed when this didn’t happen. Another ride in Disneyland, the Autopia, in which park guests spin around in shrimp automobiles was the future in the 1950’s when it premiered as this was when the national freeway system was being built. Fifty years later the cars have won, and despite a monorail being used publicly in Las Vegas and being energy efficient, they haven’t taken off.
Don’t get me immoral, I think monorails are a colossal way to get around, and a better bet than high speed rail which is very expensive to properly maintain, as well as being expensive to install. With the omnipresent internet, taking a slow assure trip won’t be so bad one day soon, and monorail use for urban travel may yet be the wave of the future. It is certainly easier to install than high speed rail.
While I don’t doubt that high speed rail will help depart people around the United States, and save energy as well, it likely will only transport a small percentage of the population on a given day. I believe that this is the case as it will be hard to get Americans to switch their depart habits in order to assume advantage of high speed rail, in addition to the sure advantages of having a car.
A more effective diagram to improve mass transportation would be to adopt a much needed GPS upgrade to the airport traffic control systems across the United States as this would allow airlines to save billions in fuel each year, as well as allowing airlines to continue to operate flights to less frequently traveled destinations. While high speed rail would be a great addition to any country’s transportation system, most likely in the next couple of years the roll out of electric cars and electric trucks will acquire transportation costs grand cheaper, and that will be the major transportation yarn of the next decade. President Obama and Congress should look at a number of issues related to electric cars, such as government subsidies, how to tax them (gasoline is taxed to help pay for roadways, but what about electric cars? ), as well as how to better enjoy the roadways which are due to get pounded with traffic over the coming decades.
While some people may be in a rush and prefer high speed rail, most of the routes traveled by high speed rail will be on the range of 300 to 400 miles, or about how far you can travel in a day. Either way, you will have spent a day traveling, and driving in your electric car means you have a vehicle when you get there.
In Florida, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are expected to enlighten a high speed rail between Tampa and Orlando which would consume approximately 60 minutes on rail, versus 90 minutes by car. However, considering that rail travel requires one to wait for the articulate, as well as the time spent disembarking, a car trip of 90 minutes doesn’t sound that abominable.
Certainly high speed rail makes tall sense between highly populated areas where there are mass transit systems at both end of the trip. However, the population density of the United States is less than that of Japan, and cars are vital for getting to out of the way places. Of course high speed rail is much more green that current automobiles as many lines are electrically supplied, and even if gas were used to beget that electricity it would unruffled be less than transporting everyone by car. However, as solar cell technology, nuclear power and even new plasma nuclear fusion systems come online, energy restraints won’t favor the high speed trains of the future as much as they do today. Eventually, airplanes themselves may go electric through the use of high-capacity energy storage systems and lightweight construction.
High Costs, High Speeds, a Target for Terrorists?
Building a high speed rail system in the United States would be very costly, perhaps too costly given the current recession. The United States has very few electrified rails, which would be needed, for high run rail. Original trains run on diesel. A whole recent system of tracks would have to built as freight trains currently run on the same tracks as passenger trains. Plus, the unusual high speed rail system would have to take a very different route than the route currently taken by trains as tracks for high hurry rail need to be mighty straighter, and have gentler curves, than novel railway tracks. Plus, a whole new control system for these high speed trains would need to be built as the modern system is not safe enough to handle high speed rail. Studies reveal that the costs of building, and maintaining a high speed rail train are not always recouped by revenue, meaning that these projects must be subsidized by the government. Of course there indirect benefits for everyone, such as decreased wear and tear on the roadways, and potentially less traffic at airports.
The biggest problem I see is that these trains travel at tremendous speeds, so posthaste that the operator does not have time to end the train in the event of an obstacle on the track. Post 9/11, a terrorist could easily decide to blow up a section of track, which would lead to either derailment, and/or closure of the line for weeks. If people approach to depend on high speed rail, and if service is lost for weeks the results could be devastating for many. Terrorists have, in fact, targeted trains in other countries of the world. A brand unusual form of transportation in America might prove to be a tempting target for both domestic and foreign terrorists. While I would love to take a trip on a high speed rail in the U.S. and bask in the green technology and efficiency, the threat of a terrorist attack would always be on my mind.
Without a doubt high speed rail will be great for those who lived in high populated urban areas such as New York, but what about people who live in more rural areas miles away from high speed rail and who would be helping to pay for these projects? For them, the use of electric cars, perhaps equipped with high efficiency solar cells and with a network of charging stations will change their lives and allow them to get around grand more easily. As the United States population grows, high speed rail fade will become more attractive, however, electric cars will change how frequently people travel and where they determine to go.
While I initially understanding that high run rail was a great idea, I reflect that for the time being improving roadways and preparing for the introduction of electric cars should be given priority.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/28/high.hasten.trains/
http://74.125.155.132/search? q=cache:awJlWPlbXTUJ:assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40973_20091208.pdf+argument+against+high+speed+rail+in+the+united+states&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
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Filed under Small Business Phone Service by on Mar 25th, 2011. 