[bonsaitree]

It will NEVER happen due to the lack of a sustainable economic model for passenger service.

The U.S. lacks both the population density and the dearth of a legacy bulk airline/airport network to make large-scale roll-out of high-speed rail service viable.

That said, I'd still be the first one to vote FOR a referendum on a build-out. Journeying by train is real, civilized travel. Outside of private charter service and PLSes, travel by air is mere transport.

[masklinn]

> The U.S. lacks both the population density and the dearth of a legacy bulk airline/airport network to make large-scale roll-out of high-speed rail service viable.

As a whole yes, but that's not really relevant. The US have several big metropolitan areas or groups for which HSR would be perfect: the western corridor between San Diego and SF, the north-east around NY, Ohio (Chicago area), ...

Is HSR competitive for NYC-SF? Hell no, not with current techs anyway, but for Chicago-Saint Louis or NYC-Washington? You bet (the question of whether a market exists in this place is another issue).

The idea is not that HSR can replace air travel as a whole. It can't. But more locally, it is able to much improve the situation in places where it applies, and there are quite a few of those in the US.

The bigger issue in the US is the dislike for trains and the car culture. In the 50s, when Japan and France were thinking about trains (as efficient ways of moving large numbers), the US were investing in roads and cars and in the 60s air travel took of insanely, meanwhile the train was left in the dust when it wasn't knowingly strangled. And through these, Suburbia was born. One of the biggest advantages of train is that it connects city centers (where airport usually require further connection work to reach the cities), and suburbia means deserted and useless city centers.

[jameskilton]

And don't forget that our current "solution" ... AmTrak ... is probably the worst public train system in the developed world. I've had the pleasure of riding the ICE and as an American who never knew such a train service, it was awesome.

If we could break a few misconceptions, setup a high speed corridor along the east coast, along the west coast, and a few cross-country lines through the north and south, we could have a fantastic rail system. But that's gonna take a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and money, and the chances of it completely happening are slim to none, but there's more and more push at least for an eastern corridor line.

[masklinn]

> And don't forget that our current "solution" ... AmTrak ... is probably the worst public train system in the developed world.

In absolute, that's true. When you take in account their limitations, mandates and everything however, they're really doing pretty good. Amtrak has pretty been much treated as an enemy (of everybody) from the start, doesn't help.

[aidenn0]

Yeah, I don't have the numbers, but I would bet a that AmTrak gets far fewer government dollars per passenger-mile than any western european rail system.

[dotcoma]

I had a very pleasant (though not high speed) ride from Santa Barbara to San Diego via LA Central 10 years ago.

[pjhyett]

It's hard to say if I'll still be in SF in another decade, but I'm excited about this project:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

[fghjkoi8uygt]

>It will NEVER happen due to the lack of a sustainable economic model for passenger service.

What about the oil for Jet-A reaching $500/barrel?