Not surprisingly, the current folks in charge in Washington willing to throw good money at anything that might have some good regardless of how bad an idea it might be in its entirety. Among those things is high speed rail. To be fair, I think high speed rail is extremely neat. In a world of limitless resources, I’d demand that it exist to an extent in the US much more than it does. But resources are limited and I have yet to see a real justification for why it is actually good and necessary.
What really bothers me though, is that one of the justifications for high speed rail is that you can travel without having to “take your shoes off.” In other words, the justification for federal intervention in and funding of high speed rail is the oh-so-wonderful federal intervention in air travel.
Brilliant.
Beyond that, am I really supposed to believe that the sprawling TSA, the Transportation — not Air Travel — Security Administration is really not going find a reason to, um, how should I put this, uh, “secure transportation”, in this case rail, by making sure that we don’t have bombs in our shoes.
Maybe that last point deserves a “nevermind” because I can believe that the federal government would be willing to tax one form of transportation (cars) to subsidize some other form that proves over and over again that it can’t pay for itself (Amtrak).
What nonsense! There are multiple reasons why high speed rail makes a great deal of sense, but you choose to mock the whole idea by pointing only to the frosting on the cake … that, compared to flying, rail travel is relaxed and comfortable. The rest of the world realized some 30 years ago that rail — high speed or otherwise — is the way to go, as anyone who has traveled by train in Europe knows very well.
Care to elaborate on those reasons? Or expound on why it’s fair and logical to compare transportation issues in the USA to that of Europe, or the rest of world?