ICE, ICE, BABY

It seems inexplicable to me that this country is unable to build even a modest version of a true high-speed rail service, one that measures up to the ones found in a half-dozen other countries. The closest thing we have is the Amtrak Acela service between Boston and Washington, DC, and that would be considered a regional express service, at best, if compared to what exists elsewhere in the world. In order to have true high-speed trains, you need dedicated right-of-ways, free of slower moving trains, like the freight trains that share the rails with Amtrak.

The author of the opinion piece that I link to above has the right idea. If you only going to allocate 8 billion dollars to promote high-speed trains (a pittance if ever there was one), then your best bet is to spend it all on upgrading the one rail corridor we have that approaches world-class standards. Instead the money is being dispersed among 31 states, only two of which have so far come up with concrete proposals. The Amtrak Northeast Corridor is not even included in the dispersal of funds.

As you view the slideshow that I set up to the right of this post, question why it is that we lag so far behind the rest of the world when it comes to high-speed rail service. And particularly think about it the next time you are forced to take a plane to travel less then 500 miles, a trip that typically involves more time getting to and from the airports, then actual time spent in the air. There is a better way, and all that is lacking is the national will to make it happen.