China built a 680-mile high-speed rail line between Shanghai and Beijing in 3 years.....

[marmar]

The British and French built a supertunnel with a high speed rail line UNDER THE ENGLISH CHANNEL in six years




We kinda sorta might get high-speed rail in the Northeast in 28 years, which will get us caught up with Japan and Western Europe circa 1978.


PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Amtrak announced a $151 billion improvement plan on Monday that includes 37-minute trips from New York to Philadelphia at speeds approaching 220 miles per hour (354 km per hour).

However, the U.S. passenger railroad will need substantial financial support from both state and federal governments to make its ambitious plan to transform rail travel in the Northeast a reality.

The railroad predicted that super-fast train trips along the East Coast could be a reality by 2040. Travel times from New York to either Washington or Boston - both about 200 miles in distance - would also be slashed, to 94 minutes, the report said.

Current travel times from New York to Philadelphia on Amtrak's sleek Acela trains are 1 hour, 15 minutes. Travel between New York and Washington currently takes 2 hours, 45 minutes and New York to Boston takes 3 hours, 41 minutes, according to Amtrak's website. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-07-09/news/sns-rt-us-usa-newyork-amtrakbre8681d9-20120709_1_acela-trains-northeast-corridor-amtrak-spokesman-steve-kulm

[Lionessa]

1. Rah! Rah! American exceptionalism. gag.

[liberal N proud]

2. As long as the oil barons own elected officials we will never see HSR

Not true HSR anyway.

The republicans are all about taking this country back, back to the 19th century.

[David__77]

3. The US lacks the will to have sufficient public infrastructural investment.

What is sad is that the funds that went to ARRA could have been expended solely on big capital projects, rather than more blind "money seeding."

[TheWraith]

4. It should be noted it's really easy to build a high speed rail network...

...when you have absolutely no regard to either the people whose homes you're building over, or the people in the trains that occasionally topple off the tracks and are buried right there where they sit--dead bodies still in them--to avoid negative PR for the Chinese government.

[oldhippie]

5. Exactly ..... When the gov't can just take the land for right of way ......

..... without just compensation, or little quibbles like property rights, or environmental issues, things can happen rather fast. And then there's the NIMBY thing.

Here in Central texas we have been trying to get a transmission line built across a couple of nearly empty counties to bring electricity from wind farms in west Texas over to the I-35 corridor where it is needed. This transmission line could be built along an existing right of way, but would be on taller towers. None of the locals like that and are blocking the approvals. The alternate route is way out in the boonies, very low population density, but it is still being fought by locals who don't want to see any power lines in their view. So even though we have a lot of wind power potential in texas, and firms that want to develop it, the NIMBYs are still blocking it. Including all the State Reps from those districts, both Ds and Rs.

How long has Cape Wind been trying to get final approval? And another lawsuit was just filed to stop it.

Good luck with high speed rail rights of way.