High-Speed Rail Roundup: Putin Promises HSR by 2018

[marmar]

from Infrastructurist:



High-Speed Rail Roundup: Putin Promises HSR by 2018
Posted on Tuesday December 14th by Eric Jaffe |




Goal. The 2018 World Cup will be held in Russia, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has already scored one for the host country. On Sunday Putin promised a new high-speed rail network in time for the event. The proposed service will connect Moscow, Kazan, Samara, and Ulyanovsk. Putin made the announcement after taking the inaugural ride on a bullet train linking Helsinki and St. Petersburg, in the company of Finnish President Tarja Halonen.

Political Football. The Economist has its doubts about America’s own high-speed hopes. Any substantive conversation on the topic has given way to ideological rants “with little reference to the specifics of any given project,” it writes:

The left views it as a near-perfect form of stimulus: creating “unoutsourceable” jobs; reducing congestion; making life easier for business; trimming carbon emissions and laying the foundations for a bigger and thus even more beneficial train network to come. Republicans, meanwhile, consider high-speed rail the physical embodiment of runaway spending, imposed from Washington by an out-of-touch elite despite its whiff of European socialism.

Strange Railfellows. If money talks, then Asia still believes the United States will build bullet lines. Bloomberg reports that CSR Corp., the largest Chinese maker of rail vehicles, has partnered with General Electric to invest $50 million in high-speed equipment for California and Florida. Japan, meanwhile, appears ready to loan Florida up to $210 million, as the Central Japan Railway competes for a bid to build the state’s line. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.infrastructurist.com/2010/12/14/high-speed-rail-roundup-putin-promises-hsr-by-2018/

[liberal N proud]

1. None of the nonsense for the US

We don't need no stinking High Speed Rail. People can just use their cars and buy more gasoline.


:nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke:

This is the attitude in this country and it pisses me off.