Trains are slower in some cases, but the views you simply cannot get from a plane or car.
You can work on a train.
You can get a private cab.
You can get up and move around.
You can go to the viewing car and see the beauty of America.
You can't do any of that in a plane or car. It is traveling in a much better way, even if longer.
Take the Southwest Chief from Flagstaff to Colorado routes and you'd be amazed at how pretty New Mexico is, the deserts of Arizona and the mountains in Colorado. Take any of the coastal lines. You will simply be blown away.
The great thing about trains or infrastructure like fiber across America maybe, people will see govt/business in action. It will build platforms of market value that people can see, people in small towns, people all around.
People need visuals just like clients need visuals to see progress, even though lots of the work is not visible maybe in code or other areas.
The time to train is now. In a way it is the last chance to really get it going before everything is full.
We have been robbed of amazing train rides and views. Take any of these routes/lines and tell me you don't enjoy the views. [1]
Before you vote on anything related to trains, go take one on our underfunded Amtrak routes. It will change your mind if you are not for it. Imagine if we did this right.
Trains use much less fuel, help make pricing for cars/planes competitive and more. Having a third major transportation option besides a bus is needed as we get more packed in.
Trains are less of a threat. Attackers can only really cause damage on a train to a section and maybe a derailment.
Plane terrorism is broader. With a plane everyone is at risk and the plane could be used to attack other things.
Train terrorism is limited. A train can't be taken off course. A train can't be all blown up. Even a massive derailment only affects a section. An attack would be a tragedy but it has rails so to speak on the reach of the damage. Maybe if they blew it up over a bridge or by a building in a city it could cause more damage or some other trigger like causing another disaster. You to have the threat of people setting explosives on the track. There was one of those in 1995 in Arizona where 1 died and 78 were injured, supposedly the attackers were avenging the Waco Siege. [1] Looks like that is the only terrorism event on trains in the US. [2] Subways and metros are probably more targeted in the city.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Palo_Verde,_Arizona_derai...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in...
This is no way in comparison to train travel. There's no "dining car" on the train. There's no tables for business meetings. There's no 2 to 4 bathrooms per car. Sleeper rooms are much cheaper and accessible than on planes, but sure, you can pay a multiple of $10k for a room on beyond-first-class international flights.
But even if I granted you that in the old days, you could show up 30 minutes before the flight, walk pretty much straight to the gate, you're still ignoring much more time spent getting to the airport, and time spent waiting for takeoff and baggage loading/unloading.
Major airports are generally located outside cities and near water if possible, train stations are usually located in the heart of the metro area. Sure, there are exceptions like Las Vegas, but in general, most people have to spent 45mins-1hr just getting to the airport in the US.
No one's saying you should use train travel for DC to SF. But come on, NYC to DC, or SF to LA is a no-fucking brainer. When you drive from SF to LA, most of Route-5 is straight land on wild open, flat prairie, and the main difficulty is when you hit the mountain range past Bakersfield, which every advanced country, be it the French, Swiss, Germans, Japanese, Chinese, already deal with, on far more harsh terrain.
There's zero excuse for the opposition to high speed rail for regional intercity, except for a stubborn, weirdly political opposition to trains, which George Will kind of outlined (accidentally) in a piece attacking trains as "socialist" but somehow air travel as "non-socialist" despite the fact that the Feds and States have funded aviation infrastructure to the tune of hundreds of billions over the decades.
For me, driving the west has been life changing. I wish I could convince my friend to give it a go. They would get a lot out of it.
In that time I would start to work (on the clock), just "sleep in" or work on hobby projects.
In the same time a friend of mine in the bay area manages to travel 20 km to the office.
As much as I hated commuting ... I'd take commuting by train over commuting by car every day.
I think it leaves Flagstaff really early in the morning - and it's not worth mentioning Flagstaff to LA or LA to Flagstaff because those trips are only scheduled for the middle of the night.
They could run them more with more routes and funding. On the way back to Flagstaff it was later so maybe they already have some additional times.
It would be nice to see LA sections during the day. But that is another benefit really, you can sleep easier on a train than you can on a plane or car, especially with a private room/car.
What happens if people don't want a railroad through their property at all? After all, once a railroad is sitting on your land, it's difficult to repurpose it for much else. The state can try eminent domain, but that takes time and lengthy court cases, and the costs add up quick.
To put it in perspective, the only all season transcontinental route is the southern most line on the article’s map. It only exists by virtue of the Gadsden Purchase in 1854. The right of way is controlled by the corporate successors of the Southern Pacific.
The non-existence of viable alternative all season grades across the west is why the Gadsden Purchase happened. The US had assumed surely such routes existed in Alta California following its succession in 1848 via the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
That's exactly what happens. Not because of NIMBYism but because it's run by consultants on cost plus, T&M, or percentage contracts. They have no incentive to finish the project. And in fact are financially rewarded for making the project more expensive.
The LGV route is a far more open and "flatter" (relatively speaking) than LA to SF. There's way less for them to tunnel or grade, which gets expensive quickly. HSR requires more gentle changes in direction than traditional rail. Building on flat, open terrain that no one is using is great... but that kind of terrain is already in use or owned by someone. Thus, easements or having to outright purchase the land. If not and you go for cheap land, it's going to come with downsides, like being mountainous.
At that, France sees less than 10 earthquake events over 2 magnitude a year on average. In the past week, there were already 6 events over 2 magnitude between LA and SF alone: https://www.cisn.org/map/index.html An LA to SF line is practically on a fault line. Devastating earthquakes are a real reality for a Cali line, not so much for France. The Cali standards for building rail are going to be higher than France, and for EXTREMELY good reason. Thus, price goes up for construction.
There's a lot more at play to building these things. What I mentioned barely scratches the surface to the complications. Claiming NIMBY is pretty naive if you don't take into consideration the real world problems and needs to achieving something compared to the lofty, idealistic wants of a project.
It's funny how the same complaints tech folks make of the construction industry are in parallel with what construction folks say of the tech industry. Both are based off ignorance. I have the pleasant curse of having a foot in both fields.
Real world construction is far more complex and difficult than what you imagine. Wide sweeping statements like, "incompetence of the construction companies and their governmental overseers" stinks of you having an cartoonish armchair understanding of what it actual takes from visualized computer renders to a real standing structure. Because civil engineering in the modern age has been a total failure, har har har. Honestly, it's people like you that are easily persuaded to vote for abolishing OSHA on the grounds to hasten construction times and lower costs. Because guess what, Cali construction costs are pretty high due to safety regulations. This is where... oh God forgive me for saying this... I agree with a lot of Cali construction code even though it can be excessive at times, it's warranted a lot of time. Especially because some of it is set for their specific region's character of obstacles... almost like local authorities know best and should enact laws how to construct depending on their local area's nuances! They shouldn't base their construction methods on regions from the other side of the planet!
In the Seattle metro area, about 100 miles of low-speed light rail has cost $75.5 billion so far. Building infrastructure in the US is just inherently more expensive than in other countries. It is a political problem, and unfortunately, only has political solutions.
In France, the railroads are nationalized. A new high speed line doesn't incur the similar costs for right of way acquisitions.
[1]: http://blog.amtrak.com/2019/05/why-are-amtrak-trains-delayed...
And most of the cost of tunnels is the requirement for emergency access and ventilation; the small demonstration tunnel in Vegas lacks these features, and so was cheaper.
To compare, the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland requires emergency cross connections every 325m and access shafts to the surface. The cross connections are perpendicular to the main tunnel and short in length so they have to be dug out more or less with workers anyways. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel#/media/Fi...
Oh crud Hyperloop finally makes sense to me.
But, yes, I've been in a Concorde (not flown in one) and the seating is, at best, modern domestic--non lie-flat--business class.
I actually think this is something that a lot of modern supersonic travel fans miss. If you're willing to spend the money that supersonic travel will cost you can travel very comfortably. And 12-24 hours of time spent relaxing comfortably is not actually a problem for most people.
There were definitely other problems (the aircraft was a dinosaur, with parts no longer made and a three-person crew; there was no reasonable replacement program on the horizon; the fuel costs of supersonic were hard to justify with the oil prices of the 2000s) but yeah, at some point Concorde's proposition became less and less appealing.
FWIW the biggest supersonic contender these days, Boom, is specifically targeting room and per-mile costs for a modern business-class cabin of 50 people, which is a lot more workable from a business perspective. That being said, the money is not really in transatlantic (where you can sleep for 6-8 hours anyways) but in transpacific, because 12+ hours in a plane is a slog no matter how comfy the seat is.
It does mean that non-stop from LA to San Jose would be right out though. Being conservative and assuming a 300km/h vehicle, you'd want at least 3 stops along the way if people are completely trapped in the vehicle without even being able to stand up, much less relieve themselves.
The bathroom is an obvious problem, and it also ties into problem # 2; the Americans with Disabilities Act. Cars and even minivans are not compliant with ADA without very expensive modification. Airplanes can afford long dwell times and dedicated personnel for people with disabilities, but as designed Boring Company/Hyperloop stuff can't accommodate this in a reasonable way.
https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/elon-musk-boring-compan...
NIMBY-ism as well? Because I can't fathom how a 400 miles high-speed rail route can cost $100bn unless you're spending years re-drafting your route because every asshole on the way has to be heard.
25 years is not completely nonsensical though, if you want to do this right it does take time.
For a fairly recent example, the french LGV Est is 252 miles (406km), it cost 4bn (including 800 millions worth of rolling stock), and took 16 years before the construction and financing protocol of the first phase was signed and the opening of the second phase. First phase opened a year late, and second phase 3 months late because of the Eckwersheim testing accident (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckwersheim_derailment).
Obviously building in California would require additional studies and expenses for earthquake safety and the like, but 12x… seems a bit much.
The cost only makes sense if it's basically all tunnels and briges, like Chūō Shinkansen: that's estimated to cost north of $90 billion for 177 miles, but it's going straight through mountains, 90% of the way is through tunnels.