...and metal is tortured into rails and switches and cars

This seems a little overly-precious to me. "Tortured" metal. As if metal is animate and has feelings. I get what she's saying, even if she is being a little too dramatic. If you don't have enough money for it, but you're gonna build it anyway, that's just idiocy. And we know that. Giving inanimate objects feelings to justify what we already know is its own brand of idiocy, and could cause people to not take you too seriously. We get the point; no need for flights of fancy, there.

Here is one that was a long time coming and a good idea. I have ridden it on workdays and on week ends and it is used alot for the 1 hour commute between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Most of the right of way is between the North bound and South bound highway lanes. VERY good project...pricey, but worth while.
and I live in Nevada

http://nmrailrunner.com/
http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/news/2011/03/09/public-transportation-passengers-fuel.html

I take rail to work nearly every day. In fact, we plan to sell our second car when ski season ends. It feels a little unpatriotic only having one car, but many weeks all I do with the 4WD is move it for street cleaning.

But that's because the train actually runs where I need it go, cuts my commute time, and enables me to work on the train; it's a popular service. But that is because it is meets a real need for commuters and does so in a convenient and economical fashion. When they meet a real need, trains can save fuel and move people around quickly. If the California project actually got people from SF to LA in a reasonable time, I'd be more than happy to take it – dealing with the TSA for an hour flight makes it all the more galling. But Bakersfield to Fresno != San Francisco to Los Angeles. McArdle is absolutely right – these rail lines don't have a real economic justification, and will contribute to the further discrediting of rail in the U.S.

There's actually a lot that can be accomplished modernizing and extending existing infrastructure. The NE corridor is a case in point.

What cracks me up is that many of the same people who advocate new lines also oppose suburbanization and development generally. But that's exactly what results from new lines that extend between metro hubs.

Still, if I have to waste money on an aircraft carrier strike force, or a bullet train in bucolia, I guess I would choose the bullet train.

As we are learning anew, the "security" provided by aircraft carriers is totally illusory. If Saudi Arabia does a Libya, are you going to pump oil with your Marines, and use your carriers aa oil tankers to bring the crude home?

Can you convert Islamics to secularism with some F-16 fly-overs?

Meanwhile, it might be fun to get on a bullet train, have a few drinks, and read the newspaper on the way to SanFran.

Yes, if we must waste money, can we not at least waste it here in the USA, and give jobs to local construction workers and profits to US-based builders?

"many of the same people who advocate new lines also oppose suburbanization and development generally. But that's exactly what results from new lines that extend between metro hubs. "

Oh, well, *we* will just have to impose urban growth boundaries, so there will be none of that.

Does anyone understand that we're broke. If it were cost effective and a profit could be made by private business (without subsidies) we would already have it. This is why we are going to hell in a hand basket. Spending tax payer money on shit we do not need.

We have the Murtha airport that cost millions to operate, that no one fly’s out of, a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder wants billions to spend money on a bridge to Canada. The list goes on and on.

With 4 billion a day on our interest payments alone, talking about any non-essential spending is more then idiocy, it’s economic suicide…..

Chasing phantom trains is even more pointless given that the traditional automobile is rapidly becoming obsolete. Self driving cars already exist experimentally, and can have very nearly all the advantages of both cars and trains, many advantages of their own, without any of the disadvantages.

I love trains, but face it, they just aren't the same without steam locomotives.

Where Robot Cars (Robocars) Can Really Take Us

From the site front page:

Or how computer geeks can enable the electric car, save the planet and millions of lives using near-term A.I. to make taxis and trucks deliver, park, recharge and drive themselves.

People have dreamed of cars that drive themselves for decades. Now, thanks to a contest sponsored by the U.S. military and further work by companies like Google, Volkswagon and Volvo, they are much closer to becoming reality than many people realize. It now feels possible to make the bold prediction that if we, as a society truly will it, we can make them popular by around 2020. More and more people are ready to declare that -- technology-wise -- it's a question of when, not if.

The technology behind this is fascinating, but even more interesting are other questions that surround the robot car future. Those issues include:

* The staggering numbers that command that we do it.
* How we might get past the social and legal barriers.
* How it will change energy, pollution, cities, transit, war, work, real estate and manufacturing -- and yes, cars.

I'll tell you why and how robocars can deal with much of this, and paint you a "roadmap" to this future. I'll reveal why a number of the most interesting robocar boons come from things they can do when there's nobody inside.

But I want to start you with some amazingly huge numbers, so large they seem almost absurd. Nonetheless, I believe that robocars could, in the USA alone, per year, enable savings like these:

* 35,000 lives and a million injuries (NIH). Mostly young people, for whom car accidents are the leading cause of death among major categories.
* 230 billion dollars of accident cost (NTSB). About 2-3% of GDP.
* 50 billion hours (or 1 trillion dollars) of people's time. Around 8% of GDP.
* 50 billion gallons of imported gasoline, replaced with the equivalent of 10 billion "gallons" of domestic-source power plant fuel. Thus eliminating about 12-15% of the USA's CO2 emissions and nastier pollution.
* A serious reduction in the urban land devoted to the ~600 million parking spaces, estimated to be up to 10% of urban land in many cities.

Now multiply that by 10 to get figures for the whole planet. If that's not enough to get you going, I am not sure what is.

In most of the corridors where HS rail might actually make sense, no such line could be built in less than 15 years. The first 10, at least, would be devoted to "environmental impact statements" and to litigation and regulatory squabbles with environmentalists and NIMBYs.

Although HSR is advertised as a prospective creator of blue-collar jobs, it would in reality be mainly a creator of jobs for lawyers and environmental consultants.

we can always count on an intelligent point from butthole. Ya, those aircraft carriers are a complete waste of money and the money to build them goes everywhere but america. What an idiot you are to even make that comparison. The train in california WILL NEVER BE FINISHED. It will be tied up in court by every special interest in and outside of california, most like by environmentalists or principalities that will want to divert it their way. God what amoron, you completely kill this thread, please crawl back under your rock and stay there until the radiation strikes

ronc-

Well, all the better then if the high-speed rail is never built--we won't waste the money, unlike those 11 aircraft carrier strike forces, eating taxpayer money by the billions every year money and patrolling the high seas continually for...for what? What other nation is forming a navy to strike at our shores? Just what do our ships do at sea?

Maybe a gay armed forces is not such a bad idea. At least the Navy would begin to make some sense. A gay could join the Navy, see the world, visit exciting port cities, broaden his view of the world. A gay could have a lot of worthwhile experiences in the navy.

ronc, BOTU is our resident narcissistic troll. We all ignore him, but he loves the sound of his own vritual voice that he keeps on posting anyway. You're wasting your time reading his posts.

s, I wish I could believe all that... but I worked on a self-driving car project back in the early '90s. Even back then, it was technologically feasible. But the killer problem then is the same as it is now: legal and political liability. The fact is, the first time you have an accident with such a system, lawyers and politicians will all pile on and that will be the end of that. And investors all know this. China will have self-driving cars long before the U.S. will.

Christopher, if you haven't seen the stories TSA is hitting train stations, too; in once case ordering EVERYONE entering the station proper to go through screening even if they were not getting on a train, so don't count on being able to get on a train unmolested.

Last summer had to drive a vehicle down to San Antonio from Oklahoma City. For the ride back checked on Amtrack and found out
I'd have had to sit there an extra three days till the next train ran,
It would have cost just as much as a plane ticket,
And it would've taken 36 hours(scheduled time) for the trip.

And let's not forget how much money goes into Amtrack currently in subsidies; just how many billions more will it be if any of these Government Railways lines are built?

BOTU is pretty amusing for a troll ronc, so we tolerate him. Very occasionally he even says something intelligent. Not this time, but it has happened.

China is building a pretty respectable blue water navy, which is a pretty good reason for maintaining aircraft carriers. Like it or not BOTU, the US has a vested interest in maintaining order in a lot of the world - you think it wouldn't hit your economy if North Korea invaded the ROK, or China invaded Taiwan? Or if South Africa fell apart? (Lots of important industrial metals and other minerals still dominate the market from there). I could wish that other countries helped out more, but it doesn't change your self-interest.

Your isolationist arguments are what led Japan to think they could take over SE Asia and that the US would back off and negotiate a peace. That worked out well.

If they plan to spend the money to build a five lane track system with automated switching it could possibly work. The outer two rails are for "local" stops north and south. The middle two would actually be high speed. The center would be to "siding" slow trains to let the high speed ones pass.

That would be about a 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in gauge line, plus the overlapping distance for the rail beds. Call it 8 feet wide per line. Minimum doing it with 4 lines is 32 feet, and with 5 lines is 40 feet wide minimum.

Then to build it you will need over/under passes. Forty feet is the length of a lot of houses. That is just the simple calculation.

Many moons ago I lived about a 1/4 mile from some train tracks. Second floor apartment on the side facing the track. When trains went by -- TV maxed, we couldn't hear it.

And then the environmental aspect of it. Most trains are nothing but giant diesel generators on electric motors. During the Enron F/U time frame with rolling blackouts -- some companies had bought/ long-term-rental of trains. They had them parked next to their plants to run the factory when the electric grid went down. The greenies complained about the pollution.

Just KMA!

Bullet or fast trains are awsome! BUT.... they do great regionally and for small areas. Here in Korea they are perfect - smallish country, simple routes and the routes go someplace like middle of Seoul to middle of port city Busan. Now if we could just get the Korean government to work on getting the Seoul subway to the International airport in Incheon - business and I mean business and tourism would be rocking.

Still even here it was government subsidize (35% according to Wiki) and some cost overruns but mostly due to material costs going up. Why the California one keeps costing more and more and not getting anywhere or even built???? Looking more at it the plan is going well the company is making a profit and more routes and plans are going ahead. Plus some bad planning here and there (like slowing down a fast train to stop off at a minor stop thus increasing route time) but still it is about the region and country.

Is California having trouble handling the cars and people and cargo from San Francisco to LA? Is it hard to get people from place to place (ignoring LAs traffic). As Amy keeps mentioning air tickets are cheap. Air travel is not really done here in Korea domestically and I would say the same for Japan. I could see an improvement in the east Side of the US - Washington, New York, Chicago and Boston kind of routes.

As to Botu - I will agree with a touch. I think aircraft carriers are stupid in this day and age. Submarines yes, but their are more government boondongles that could be cut. I mean could we not tell some of these cities and that to screw building stadiums and convention centers for business welfare try some it on some mass transit.

If you fly on a plane, you get scanned or groped. I'm no longer flying unless I must. I took an eight hour train to see my family rather than the one hour flight. Heck, I could spread out and work. It wasn't bad at all.

I agree it's stupid to build the high-speed rail where people are unlikely to use it, but I'd love to see more and better trains. The ones in Europe are so much better than ours.

FYI, door to door, the train from NYC to Boston or NYC to DC takes about the same amount of time as the flights, by the time you factor in waiting in security lines. And you're spending that time sitting down with a cup of coffee and your laptop instead of getting groped.

Gail, it won't be long before the TSA is groping you before you get on the train. Their authority isn't limited to airports.

Is California having trouble handling the cars and people and cargo from San Francisco to LA? Is it hard to get people from place to place (ignoring LAs traffic).

Yes. The 5 freeway through the Central Valley is a potential mess any time during normal hours (maybe 8am-10pm), 7 days a week. You can be cruising along for an hour or so, then end up in a traffic jam, then be moving again, accidents or no. If you drive late night, or the traffic gods are smiling, it's about a 5 hour trip. But it can easily be a 7 hour trip during daylight hours, even on a weekend.

Most of the way, you've only got 2 lanes each way. Not enough for a lot of passenger cars and a bunch of tractor-trailers (who drive aggressively and block both lanes for extended periods, preventing passing - probably because the 4-wheelers drive stupidly - it's a good example of two wrongs making a worse).

Back when I was poorer I used to drive a lot. Cheaper than flying, not much slower, and I had the convenience of having my car with me and the ability to come, go or stay as I liked. But my schedule was more flexible then.

Would it not be better then to spend 1 billion dollars fixing (overpasses, tunnels, extra rounds) that and another 1 billion fixing up the roads and another billion fixing the old tracks in between then 15+ billions on a train that may take another 10 years to build.

BOTU:

Without the United States Navy, there is no international trade, period.

One of the relatively unpublicized missions of our navy is protecting the shipping lanes from what otherwise would be widespread industrial-level piracy.

Imported goods - including some essential raw materials - would disappear. Manufacturing jobs which rely on the export market (i.e. all of them) would disappear.

There is no other entity in the world that has the capacity to protect shipping lanes, and so over the past decades that has become an evolving role of the navy.

John Paulson: Indeed.

Overpasses, tunnels, adding barrels to the existing interstate system. That is what is desperately needed. Unfortunately, pavement projects don't provide politicians with pretty ribbon-cutting photo ops. So the transportation dollars get diverted to bike paths and rest areas and other flashy projects.

Meanwhile our transportation infrastructure crumbles.

AB-

And who wants to close shipping lanes? China, the exporter? Russia, the oil exporter?

Name one nation that wants to close shipping lanes. Waiting. Waiting. Still waiting. Oh, Somali pirates? That's why we maintain 11 carrier tsrike forces?

If you want to mobilize to meet a bona fide threat, I am all for it. If you want to stay poermanently in a hyper-mobilized state in case a threat emerges someday, then that is an extraordinary waste of money.

As for China, they are not building a blue water navy. They are smartly boosting up their sub force, and I am all for subs. China is building a navy perhaps capabale of defending its shores--and since we insist on steaming right past their shoreline constantly, they might have some reason to do so. Our navy idiots regard it as "provocative" if China dares to sail in the South China Sea.

Taiwan is a tough issue. The island has been part of the government of mainland China for a couple thousand years. I hope the issue os resolved peacefully. However, I do not feel like getting nuked over Taiwan. A good fight to stay out of. Evenetually, we will have to back down. We have broke our bank spending on military, rural and welfare programs in America, and sustaining forces there will not be practical.

BOTU,

You apparently have never heard of a little thing called piracy.

Good grief.