What Happened to Obama's HSR?

GOP obstruction happened. Congress is at a standstill. They can't even fund veterans services and unemployment insurance, let alone infrastructure. That's at the bottom of the list.
 
the stuff that's really making a difference (for now) is Chicago - St Louis and Chicago - Michigan. In both cases they'll get the routes up to 110mph for significant stretches. Both are partially done with more work underway, and both have seen increases in ridership.

They are also untangling the network to eliminate congestion and that should shave more minutes off (but passengers going 30mph won't feel like they're high speed, but it sure beats 0mph waiting for a freigh train)

Elsewhere you have lots of small projects that will give incremental boosts to trains that were already decently fast, like replacing the power supply on a straight stretch in New Jersey (eventually to support 165mph instead of 125), or re-activating a straighter stretch of track south of Seattle (for the Sounder service)

If California had taken a similar "gradualist" approach, they would have chosen to start with a stretch of new conventional track to close the rail gap between LA and the Central Valley. Instead, because they knew there would be a temptation to start 80mph trains from Bay to Basin and never electrify them, they pledged instead to start in the Central Valley "middle of nowhere", believing that the threat of "all or nothing" would get them "all" and instead will get basically nothing.

Personally, I think they should have started with new conventional rail to close that gap and given themselves a conventional statewide system. Yes, electric trains doing 180 or 220 are sexy, but the wins that are out there to be had will be in the 110 to 125 mph range--or even at 80.

California's "all or nothing" approach was unique and was partly overconfidence on railfan's part that there'd be enough money to pay for the system, and that there wouldn't be overruns, or that if there were, the political will would hold together long enough to cover them.

Other states, like Virginia & Michigan have had a sustained by bipartisan approach to rolling out more and faster trains, and even financial basket case Illinois has been able to pull off its gradual improvements.

California seems a uniquely disastrous mix of "all or nothing", political chicken, cost overruns (or under-forecasts).
 
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datadyne007 said:
GOP obstruction happened. Congress is at a standstill. They can't even fund veterans services and unemployment insurance, let alone infrastructure. That's at the bottom of the list.
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Yeah data, you always have to blame the republicans. IT'S ALWAYS THEIR FAULT!!!! DEMOCRATES ARE ON THE SIDE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND INTEGRITY BECAUSE THEY ARE OK WITH KILLING UNWANTED BABIES!!!!
 
So you set him up with your leading question and he responded as you hoped so you slammed his comment?

YOU WIN THE INTERNET! CONGRATULATIONS
 
^nice to see you using internet speak from 2009!!!! It's great to see this board has internet 'ol timers!!!
 
I answered the question, plain and simple. The democrats have put so many "jobs bills" that include infrastructure funding on the table and they've all been DOA because of the circus in Washington. So many people can be put to work to repair and upgrade our country's crumbling infrastructure, but no. It's just simply absurd.
 
armpitsOFmight said:
Yeah data, you always have to blame the republicans. IT'S ALWAYS THEIR FAULT!!!! DEMOCRATES ARE ON THE SIDE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND INTEGRITY BECAUSE THEY ARE OK WITH KILLING UNWANTED BABIES!!!!
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Who is Democrates, Howie? Is he the ancient Greek philosopher who developed the concept of all-caps shouting?
 
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