so? even if that's true, that doesn't mean high speed rail is bad. it means you should be more careful with the planning, not "don't try new shit for the next forever years"

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 0 points 1 week ago

Realistically what the United States really needs isn't high speed rail but just passenger rail service. Standard speed mainline passenger service to more places and with more frequency than three times a week at 3am (which I wish was an exaggeration)

If I were totalitarian dictator of the US I'd first have the federal government sieze control of the entire rail network, including all dispatching and all of the private rail maintaince companies and lease trackage rights back to the railroads, keeping rail construction, dispatching and maintenance in house. Next I would create a true national passenger rail network, restoring service to every city possible that still has active right of way. Then, I would use my ownership of the rail network to force the class 1 railroads to construct and operate their trains in a manner condusive to actually moving freight and not blocking other trains (it's incredible how railroad company executives seem to hate railroads and do everything they can to avoid operating a functioning railroad) plus open up the rail network to new private freight and passenger companies, and finally I'd build new rail coordidors first following the existing interstate network and as those new rail coordidors bed in I'd start reducing lanes on the interstate and introducing tolls to further discourage the use of private vehicles. Maybe some would be converted into bikeways, maybe some would be re-greened. It would be a decision made on a case by case basis what to do with all of the space reclaimed by the highway network

We used to dream big and our governments used to undertake projects like this to improve our countries. And despite our governments being richer than ever they choose to stagnate and not take risks on big public projects like this

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Given that we here in the US are still trying g to work out from under 150 year old rail infrastructure, I don’t think they need to worry about it for a while.

Rail generally lasts longer than roads even if you don’t maintain it. We’ve proven that

[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

A feature of rail is very high building costs. If they wasted money on building HSR on a lot of places where it's not needed, this means there's gonna be a debt that never gets paid by the utilization of the rail. Bad investment.

So it's not about maintenance, but the up-front cost.

Not doing an investment where an investment would make a lot of money is of course a kind of reverse of this, but which leads to a similar outcome.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You could say the same about pretty much any infrastructure. It’s hideously expensive and will never get paid back by utilization.

highways
local roads
bridges
air traffic control
utilities of most kinds
canals
flood control
erosion mitigation

All are hideously expensive and will never get paid back by utilization.

Are they all bad investments?

I claim they all are critical for their indirect benefits to an economy, a society, and rail is exactly the same.

[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I would say that there's quite a lot of reason to believe that infrastructure investments can be one of the best ways to help poor people rise economically. Which has obvious paybacks.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/infrastructure/publication/infrastructure-and-poverty-reduction-innovative-policies

This still requires creating infrastructure that is actually needed, otherwise it's just wasting money (which ultimately is just an abstraction over wealth, opportunity, materials, workers' finite time and energy, etc etc).

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

infrastructure investments can be one of the best ways to help poor people rise economically

And specifically consider how much we can help by not requiring all the expenses of owning a car. Transit and intercity rail could be among the best investments when you consider those indirect benefits. Such a shame that short sighted people want them to be profitable in utilization

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

why are you talking about building high speed rail where it's not needed? don't think anyone's advocating for that.