A top to bottom look at green energy

agesilaus wrote:
Well why are high speed trains feasible in Europe and Japan? Look at the population density, the distance between cities is much less than it is in the US. Berlin to Hamburg--177 miles
Berlin to Munich-- 350 miles
Tokyo to Osaka-- 330 miles
New York City to Houston 1700 miles
The cities are close, the population density is high. US population density about 90 per sq mile, Germany about 500 per sq mile

See the problem. The Cali idiotic planned high speed rail runs thru mostly unpopulated sections of the state. Places that cannot support the train line.

Different places mean different economic realities. Added on top of this is the fact that the US optimized train traffic for Freight, thus all those mile long freight trains. Europe and I assume Japan went for passenger trains and they have many more semi trucks on their toads.

Bingo! That density and the vast distances are but a part of the problem with rail in the US. Many cities also subscribe to urban sprawl, mean the population and economic hubs are spread around, not concentrated in city centers. Get off your high speed train in downtown Dallas and you might be 50 miles from your Metro Dallas home or business destination. At the same time, that downtown Dallas is almost devoid of a residential population. No one would get off the train and walk home.
That same person who marvels at the convenience of trains in Europe and Japan should rightly be impressed with the Roadways in most major US cities as well as our interstate highway system. One can easily travel thru that downtown Dallas and on to any of the many suburbs in their personal car without a worry that the road will be a dead end or narrow to the point only a smart car could pass. That would not be the case in Italy or other European cities where the roads were laid out 500 years ago. Transportation is not a one size fits all proposition.