 |
Re: Why Can't the United States Build a High-Speed Rail System?
Author: Erik H.
Date: 08-24-2014 - 07:22
First of all, "Europe" does not have a High-Speed Rail System. Europe is not a country, it is a continent.
Germany has high speed rail. France has high speed rail. Spain sort of has high speed rail. And yes, some of these systems do connect (i.e. Thayles).
There's a BUNCH of countries that DO NOT have HSR. And furthermore, HSR is only a tiny component of each country's rail system. The vast, vast, VAST majority of riders do not - and in many cases, NEVER set foot on an HSR train.
Now, let's compare the population of these countries. France has 65.7 million residents. Germany, 81.9 million. Spain, 47.3 million. Together those three countries have nearly 195 million residents.
Now, let's look at the United States and it's 314 million residents. The LARGEST population state, California, has just over 38 million residents. Texas has 26.5 million and New York has just under 20 million, with half of its population concentrated in one little corner of the state and the rest fanned out.
If we followed the European model, this would really be a states' issue. How many states can logically put together enough population AND travel demand to warrant an HSR line? A small handful. But then because of this "HSR love fest" we have states like Oregon trying to plan for HSR, that frankly have no business even thinking about it. Portland-Seattle-Vancouver (three cities with roughly a same population) has a glimmer, but even Washington acknowledges that HSR isn't going to happen and is planning incremental upgrades to its existing service.
Throw in politics, environmental laws, financing concerns, the rights of existing property owners...you can see that everything is working against HSR in this country. The reality is that we don't have major metro areas that are several million people each, located about 100-150 miles apart, spread out evenly. Look at the PNW - there's the three aforementioned cities, and then the next nearest metros are Salt Lake City or Sacramento and the Bay Area - and we're talking 600-700 miles of HSR to build with no intermediate cities (at least not one that a European style HSR train would bother stopping at), and at 200 MPH you're still talking three-four hours, which is still slower than an airplane even including check-in, security, etc.
And don't think that the TSA won't be involved...you better believe in this country, the TSA will mandate airport style security screening. So that's another "advantage" that won't exist in a U.S. implementation of HSR.
Germany has high speed rail. France has high speed rail. Spain sort of has high speed rail. And yes, some of these systems do connect (i.e. Thayles).
There's a BUNCH of countries that DO NOT have HSR. And furthermore, HSR is only a tiny component of each country's rail system. The vast, vast, VAST majority of riders do not - and in many cases, NEVER set foot on an HSR train.
Now, let's compare the population of these countries. France has 65.7 million residents. Germany, 81.9 million. Spain, 47.3 million. Together those three countries have nearly 195 million residents.
Now, let's look at the United States and it's 314 million residents. The LARGEST population state, California, has just over 38 million residents. Texas has 26.5 million and New York has just under 20 million, with half of its population concentrated in one little corner of the state and the rest fanned out.
If we followed the European model, this would really be a states' issue. How many states can logically put together enough population AND travel demand to warrant an HSR line? A small handful. But then because of this "HSR love fest" we have states like Oregon trying to plan for HSR, that frankly have no business even thinking about it. Portland-Seattle-Vancouver (three cities with roughly a same population) has a glimmer, but even Washington acknowledges that HSR isn't going to happen and is planning incremental upgrades to its existing service.
Throw in politics, environmental laws, financing concerns, the rights of existing property owners...you can see that everything is working against HSR in this country. The reality is that we don't have major metro areas that are several million people each, located about 100-150 miles apart, spread out evenly. Look at the PNW - there's the three aforementioned cities, and then the next nearest metros are Salt Lake City or Sacramento and the Bay Area - and we're talking 600-700 miles of HSR to build with no intermediate cities (at least not one that a European style HSR train would bother stopping at), and at 200 MPH you're still talking three-four hours, which is still slower than an airplane even including check-in, security, etc.
And don't think that the TSA won't be involved...you better believe in this country, the TSA will mandate airport style security screening. So that's another "advantage" that won't exist in a U.S. implementation of HSR.
