I vote for putting all government workers, welfare recipients, and prisoners into gerbil wheels and have them create electricity for the rest of us. Is that green or what?
The U.S is not Japan.
Japan (where the “shinkansen” term and concept come from) has a population density of 873,000 people per square mile. (Obviously the hub cities of the shinkansen are much, much higher.)
The USA’s population density is almost exactly ONE TENTH that of Japan.
I agree, a high speed ground based transportation system is needed in this country.
How will Maglev or even high speed rail work under a lot of snow? It’s not hard to plow regular tracks, but with high speed trains and the very high tolerances of maglev, a small buildup of ice could cause serious problems.
...and as far as the overall issue of rail travel goes, very little of the US is remotely densely populated enough to ever make rail profitable.
Japan is roughly the size of California alone.
Americans don’t want to take trains, except in
cities.
Willie! You’re back!
The one thing I greatly appreciate when returning to the U.S. from countries that rely heavily on public transportation is our wonderful system of roads. I can crisscross the Country with complete independence not relying on "stations" or "Time schedules". Most cities can be traversed with little fuss. All this from the comfort of my personal automobile.
Freedom is great! They can have the high speed tin cans filled with a crush of human flesh.
Maybe they really would rather have a Corvette.
As an alternative to the present state of air travel - hell yes.
No federal subsidies. But if the Japanese think they can build these trains and run them at a profit, more power to them and their investment is welcomed. I do wonder, however, about the rights of way.
Many of the bureaucratic challenges to introducing bullet trains to this region have been, or are nearly, resolved, he said.
Wrongo! The PEOPLE don't want this and nobody that lives here in FL will ride it, ever. But we'll certainly get to subsidize it! But it'll be great! Image riding into town to catch an Orlando Magic game, only to come out of the game at 10PM and find--the train is shut down for the night. That is the proposed shutdown time. Unless the stupid train delivers you right to the door of the place you want to go to you still have to rent a car or take a cab 20+ miles. Or walk, in the daily summer rains. What's not to like?!
A jet plane goes over double what the fastest train in the world goes, I believe. Enough with your train obsession, dude!
Were you denied a train set as a kid?
Japan is the size of California, with 1/3 the population of the United States.
They use taxes and shaken to discourage car use.
IT WILL NOT WORK - especially in this economy.
日本＊ピング＊ (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)
Look, Japan is about the size of California and has only 127 million people versus our 310 million.
The Bullet Trains work there due to the density.
Airplanes and automobiles work in the US ~ again, due to the lack of high density.
Frankly I get the idea most of the big name advocates of highspeed rail are just the sort of people who would spend the nation bankrupt getting their limousines traffic free roads and free parking.
Ain't gonna' happen. We'd have to be up about 2 billion people or so ~ about India's density, to make this type of rail service meaningful.
I’m in favor of a high speed train, with no brakes, that runs from Washington to the Marianas Trench. And for every 100 miles it runs, a wheel falls off. And cows on the tracks every 10 miles. And give the Indians limitless arrows and the schedule.
Shinkansen trains work in Japan because of a lot of different factors including population density in metropolitan areas and massive government subsidies. They are not always profitable.
Any attempt to build a shinkansen system in America will become an automatic target for the lawsuit industry. I don’t see it happening.
Wait till they get a TSA in place for trains. Everyone will want to drive.
"Sadly, the GOP is on the wrong side of the fence on this issue."
No actually, many in the GOP understand our transportation issues, as well as the differences between the U.S. and Japan better than many who believe mere hope and enough money make for worthwhile government managed projects.
And: "If there is one thing virtually all Americans whose only form of transport at home has been automobiles appreciate when they come to Japan, it's the bullet trains"
Why do you ascribe your own opinions, or even those of some, to everyone as in "virtually all Americans".
I have made many trips to Japan and attach no significant false admiration to the bullet train. Yes, it goes from point A to point B rapidly, in a very Japanese context. By that I am acknowledging the geographic, topographic, demographic and rail system features of Japan.
1st Japan is a narrow arc of islands about 1800 miles in length but only 250 miles at it's widest point. Over 70% of its land mass is mountainous, and the majority of that uninhabited while the population resides on about 10% of the land - and population density along a mass-transit route is the basic starting parameter to whether or not it can be self-sustaining.. The fact that Japan is so mountainous was one of the factors, if not the major factor, that drove the Japanese to develop so many rail lines - from the beginning of it's industrialization, and eventually the high speed lines - where could they possibly have built highways to carry as much cargo in as small of a footprint, across all the mountains? They couldn't have. As they say - "necessity is the mother of invention".
2nd -Is the Japanese high speed rail line - like the "bullet" train - a standalone transportation feature that exists, or could exist on its own? No. The majority of it's long distance customers are "fed" to connections to the high-speed lines by connecting train and bus routes - routes designed (and needed) as "feeder routes" for the long distance high-speed trains. Most of the short-distance or "metropolitan" customers of the high speed lines live in the high-density population centers of Japan. Regardless, the main form of transportation to Japan's northernmost Island (Hokkaido - pop 80+mil) remains inter-Island air transportation.
3rd Like any "too-big to fail" government project, the whole system went bankrupt as too much politics determined how many rail lines ought to be built and where they ought to be built - especially to feed the high-speed lines.. With debts of 28 trillion yen JNR was privatized in 1987 into four companies, who paid all of 9.2 trillion yen to acquire the network. U.S. taxpayers can expect much the same kind of financial history for any rail project the current administration is touting.
4th While I have always enjoyed my trips on Japan's high speed trains, like many of my Japanese friends I am sorry that my schedule is controlled by the train schedule, unlike a long-distance car trip, and like my many Japanese friends I miss the scope and scale of Interstate grade highways to take us everywhere we want to go once our train trip ends. I admire what the Japanese did, in their circumstances, just as my Japanese friends admire the freedom to head out to any destination we want in my car when they come to visit.
From pogo101
"Japan (where the “shinkansen” term and concept come from) has a population density of 873,000 people per square mile. (Obviously the hub cities of the shinkansen are much, much higher.)......The USA’s population density is almost exactly ONE TENTH that of Japan.
BINGO, pogo101 hits part of the issue.
From DonaldC
"I agree, a high speed ground based transportation system is needed in this country."
Where, why, and at what cost? And why should they be built with, and continuously supported with subsidies from taxpayers from all over the country, many of whom will never use them? Just to say we have them? Like the French cheered that they had the Concorde?
The government's involvement might simply mean the taxpayers will be propping up a "high speed Amtrak", and making as much financial sense as does Amtrak as it operates now.
If something is (a) needed, (b) essentially needed and (c) makes economic sense, then taxes are not needed to build it or keep it operating. The only assistance that such a venture may need from the government, if not only (c) is true but (a) and (b) are true as well, might be assistance in helping to obtain the "right of way" based on the "public use" concept. - but that should be the beginning and end of it. Without the support of (a), (b) and (c) all being true, then once enjoined to support the venture the taxpayers will never be free of it because it will never work in a self-sustaining (absent taxpayer supported subsidies) manner.
You can also bet that there is some private interest who stands to gain the most in the immediate sense, from these type of government ventures. So, can anyone ask, how many more people can the entertainment industry in Orlando get if it's out of state customers are not limited as much to Orlando's airport alone, if they can fly into Tampa, hotel there and "train" down to Orlando for the day.
That being the case, Disney and Universal et al should be told to build their own dam railroad and subsidize it in the prices of their Orlando-ventures admission tickets.