Wait, someone murdered RBG?

oh yeah isn't she in the lego movie 2

https://slate.com/business/2019/02/high-speed-rail-in-california-and-the-green-new-deal-it-could-work-in-america-but-were-screwing-it-up.html

These people know nothing of rail

Particularly north American rail.

They fail to mention that in places like China, their high speed rail barely makes a profit. In fact one runs at a deficient (most likely to try and bring a rebellious part of the country "closer" to the rest of China). Also they shake off the cost of rail for American being "too big" but that is a very important problem. We are spread out, big time. Italy, their other cited place? Whats the size of that compared to most states and what is the population density.

That Cali rail project? The guy who originally proposed it is now fighting it because law makers changed the deal and now it will most likely need government subsedies to function.

Thunderf00t is right.

The Hyperloop will tank for similar reasons.

it would depend on the maintenance cost of the loop itself

thats what causes the problem with america being too big

not enough passengers per foot of rail

its also why freight is still profitable.

they also seem to miss a couple of other points when it comes to high speed rail:

1) creating and installing that much rail to make it a viable alternative to flight with be an environmental disaster

2) fast air travel is important not for just people on vacation and overnight shipping but also things like delivering organ transplants, disaster recovery and medical flights

pretty sure air travel, ironically enough, ends up being safer.

but that really comes down to how much time and money is spent on maintenance in both cases

3) The amount of money they would spend on creating that much railway infrastructure could be used to research ways to make air travel "carbon neutral"

hell, with that amount of money you could probably invent teleporters!

4) it would require the government to seize massive amounts of private property

How about japan

Does high speed rails make money there

which even if you don't have any moral qualms with this it generates endless lawsuits, challenges and delays

just look at how well the oil pipeline is going with all the protests and challenges, now imagine that with tens of thousands of miles of railway

don't need to imagine, look at the cali and texas ones

or any number of rail networks in europe

hell in i think france, they intentionally went around the edges of farmland because it was cheaper an easier to make the rail longer than try and fight the farmers

and Europe has the advantage of lots of existing rail already in place

trying to create what Europe has now plus a lot more, yikes!

put the money in warp drive and teleporters, probably cheaper, faster and more likely to succeed!

socialists aren't know for wanting to invest in the future

Japan is tiny and dense, it does not need the scale the US would need

really its the population density that is the problem

there are certain connections which might work, and if they where 100% privately funded, rather than these mixed private-public ones, they might work

unfortunately politicians have their own goals and ideas.

the cali one, for example, i think was switched to using existing networks which would be upgraded, then added a stop at a university or something like that

Like a coastal new England line could probably work

which just makes things impractical

Eh

New England is dense and small