Quote:
Originally Posted by Car(e)-Free LA
This is a total fallacy because you're comparing different units.
PPSM
Japan: 865
Germany: 601
Italy: 518
Mid-Atlantic: 417
China: 375
Florida: 365
France: 319
California: 246
Spain 238
New England: 233
Piedmont-Atlantic States: 233
Great Lakes States: 192
Europe: 188
Texas: 101
USA: 87
Certainly, if you break the USA down into European country-sides chunks, there are areas which can warrant HSR. Not at Japan levels, but certainly like that of France and Spain.
|
I didnt break down individual states but that still doesn't take into account where HSR makes sense.
It works in the Low Countries and Japan and parts of Germany, it would work between the Bay and Sac, or the Northeast, Maybe Seattle-Vancouver, Possibly Chicagoland and maybe (BIG MAYBE) Dallas-Houston or Florida.
But HSR between the Bay and LA doesn't work. Within the Bay or Socal it would but between the two through major mountain ranges and rural land? Nope.
No major country has built HSR across the kind of territory and low density areas that California attempted to do.
And this isn't even getting into the economics of the cost for people to drive cars int he USA vs take trains or planes. Unfortunately we are blessed with extremely inexpensive and abundant sources of energy, the majority of the country east of Denver is relatively flat and easy to get around on cheaply and efficiently and at densities a fraction of the territory HSR is built in Asia and Europe.
There is a myriad of reasons why HSR does not work in the USA, and why the Cal plan was foolish from the get go. Not that HSR is bad in general but it only makes sense to do in the right circumstances.