I've thought about this quite a bit. While it would be nice to have high speed rail, I think it is too expensive to build a large network in the US. The population centers of the United States are more spread out than they are in Western Europe and Asia, so the cost of building such a system per user would be just too high to connect the Midwest. I've read estimates to the tune of $80 million per mile of newly constructed high speed line. Think about that. Just to run a new high speed rail from Ann Arbor to Detroit would cost $2-3 billion. Its just too much. $53 billion could build 8 major new international airports that would be used by far more travelers.
I've looked at some of the Amtrak ridership numbers, and assuming ridership would probably double or triple if high speed rail were a reality, I think there are a few places where it could work, connecting chains of cities, rather than vast expanse.
1. Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Washington [[obviously)
2. Los Angeles Area-San Diego
3. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland-Sacramento
4. Milwaukee-Chicago-St. Louis [[St. Louis is a stretch)
Sadly, I don't think the ridership on any other routes would warrant the massive costs of high speed rail now or in the future. I think we have to stick with airplanes by and large. That infrastructure is already in place, and there are security issues with high speed rail that are already taken care of in our airports as well.
I'm not opposed to government involvement in mass transit. Far from it. But think about what $53 billion dollars could do for intracity mass transit in this nation. That is the problem to solve, high speed rail is trying to solve a problem that isn't really there in most of the country.
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