RE: Amtrak's high-speed rail vision for 2040: New York to Washington in 96 minutes
One annual expense that seems continuously omitted in these discussions of high speed rail development is the $billions dedicated to maintaining air travel every year, not to mention the freeways, interurban rail lines, and subways built and maintained to connect city centers to the outlying airports. Then there's the time and productivity wasted traveling to and from those remote landing sites.
Anti-train wags constantly bring up the supposed subsidies for each AMTRAK passenger trip but conveniently ignore that air travel is EXPENSIVE and highly tax supported from every governmental level, probably more than any other transportation segment save walking.
On another aspect:
If this country weren't wasting 60% of the GNP annually on the bloated Defense Department, none of this would be an issue, and the USA could compete with any other country's high speed rail systems.
Just imagine if the entire expense blown in IRAQ over the last decade had been instead dedicated to our own infrastructure!
