Quote:
Originally Posted by jmecklenborg
This project is a piece of cake from an engineering point of view, given that the United States has led the planet in military aviation, navy, space, computers - everything with the exception of high speed trains - for the past 70 years. Hell, we have the greatest freight railroad network on the planet and nearly 100% of its equipment is manufactured domestically.
The United States is, by far, the wealthiest country in the world. The S&P is worth 10X in 2021 as compared to 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. California alone has the cash on hand to build this thing, even without the help of the federal government.
So why aren't we farther along? Politics.
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Politics, priorities, and culture to be more precise.
Three days ago CA approved
$15 billion in wildfire defense, drought protection, and other climate change funding. That's more than the entire cost of the IOS, spend in just one year. The money is there, the government prefers to spend it on other things.
But even in CA, HSR rolls against the culture. Americans always look at government in terms of taxes raised and money spent, not on societal benefit. Transportation infrastructure is money loosing. From that perspective, roads are a better investment, they cost much less to build and maintain than HSR. I wouldn't be surprised if HSR cost more than an equivalent road system even after you accounted for HSR's income from ticket fees. So you get a lower tax bill with freeways.
But that math doesn't take into account the cost of a car, gasoline, heath effects from an auto based society, and lowered productivity from time spent in traffic. All that doesn't go on a tax bill, even though it can add up to far more per person than the cost of HSR and public transit. So even if they have a lower taxes, your average American probably spends more in total for the ability to get from place to place than people do Japan or western Europe.