RE: Amtrak's high-speed rail vision for 2040: New York to Washington in 96 minutes
Let me see if I got this straight...
The NEC ridership is currently 9 million (per year I assume). so, per day they transport 25,000. So we intend to spend $117 billion or $4.7 million per commuter to cut their commute time in half? Even if they double their ridership, we are talking more than $2 million per daily commuter -- just to save them an hour or two.
This is why Amtrack and the U.S.A. is bankrupt. They are both stupid.
Commuters decide they want to commute, so why are we subsidizing their decision? I say, increase the ticket prices to cover the costs and let the people doing the commuting pay the bill or they should move closer to their workplaces.
Those 25,000 folks could cover the costs over 10 years for a paltry $1,330.00 round trip ticket. And that price would decrease as more riders scrambled to save an hour or two on their commute!
This same logic worked for the SST, that other great Euro adventure, where commuters were also not willing to pay a lot more money to save some time.
