The USA is a third world country when it comes to rail transport. Our sole "high speed" line is the upgraded Northeast Corridor, which at its best sometimes approaches the UK's East and West Cost main lines. But that's still a generation behind the state of the art, as I'm sure you're aware.
As far as I can tell, the top people in the US government have never seen any political hay to be made from high-speed rail. Airlines and freeways are more interesting to them. Few of the key decision-makers have ever even been on a train themselves, I bet. And the airlines work very dilligently to squash high-speed initiatives that might interfere with them. I reckon Southwest Airlines will throw a lot of money at killing the California High Speed Rail bond if it ever manages to make it to the ballot, for instance.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-09-25 07:56 pm (UTC)As far as I can tell, the top people in the US government have never seen any political hay to be made from high-speed rail. Airlines and freeways are more interesting to them. Few of the key decision-makers have ever even been on a train themselves, I bet. And the airlines work very dilligently to squash high-speed initiatives that might interfere with them. I reckon Southwest Airlines will throw a lot of money at killing the California High Speed Rail bond if it ever manages to make it to the ballot, for instance.