LogFAQs > #974940752

DeathMagnetic80 posted...

While I wish we had that, the US is a massive country and the cost to build a high speed rail system would be pretty astronomical

You don't need a system that spans the entire country and connects every possible destination all at once. Adding high-speed rail alternatives to existing high-traffic routes has the potential to dramatically reduce that road traffic and the associated costs (which are much, much higher than most people realize even before trying to attach a price tag to externalities like deaths and pollution), at a cost that's much more manageable than trying to do everything at the same time. That should be part of a long-term plan for a larger-scale network, of course, since trying to connect multiple segments into a larger network without that planning is a nightmare (which I am of course an authority on because I've played Factorio), but investing in one route at a time will still yield significant benefits.

Dikitain posted...

Only because it is used more, which is kind of my point.

As crappy as it is to travel by air, it is also extremely safe due to all the safety regulations in place. Rail needs to have those same regulations before it is going to be a viable option, but it is also going to raise the cost astronomically. Which isn't going to be good for an industry where they are already struggling to get people to use it.

The thing is that rail is only as unsafe as it is because it struggles so much to stay afloat, and it struggles to stay afloat because subsidies are overwhelmingly directed toward roads, the service provided is objectively worse than driving in almost every way (meaning very few people choose to travel by rail), and because parties interested in keeping cars dominant lobby against efforts to improve it. With a commitment to making it a viable alternative to driving and a suitably-sized locomotive shoved up the ass of the remaining Koch brother the next time he shows up with a cheque, those safety concerns won't be hard to manage at all. After all, pretty much every other developed country in the world has managed to pull it off (except Canada, for many of the same reasons).