I question some of the numbers, as well
The savings seem like pie-in-the-sky, and experience tells us that construction costs go way out of bounds, especially since we have no experience actually building these projects.
And we always talk about personal savings, but once you have to pay for more than one ticket, your savings disappear. I don't know what the price of the rail ticket will be, but I suspect that taking a family of 4 on a trip will still be less expensive in the family car.
Regarding the airlines being optimized for $40/bbl oil, those planes get roughly twice the mileage they used to, as I understand, so $86/bbl isn't that bad. $100/bbl is, though!
That said, I agree that we ought to have high speed rail in a lot of places. Houston to Dallas would be great. As of now, it's quicker to drive that route than to fly when getting to the airport and waiting are factored in.
I'm not even sure that things like savings based on current energy use makes sense. What we're talking about is being able to keep up with increased population 20 years from now, and there simply may be no other choice. Someone mentioned using larger airplanes as number of passengers increases, but extra cars can be added to the trains as well.
Somebody needs to come up with a comprehensive and truly realistic set of numbers.
