So Long, America’s High Speed Rail Road
We recently informed readers of a rail concept, which connects high speed trains together while in motion, called Moving Platforms. This insane idea might take off in Japan or China, but you won’t see it on US-soil anytime soon.
Not because it’s far too dangerous and still in R&D stages, but because it seems like America is not getting a high speed rail system.
President Obama was spearheading a move towards high speed rail roads. In fact, workers under the Commander in Chief planned out full routes for the $8 billion dollar HSR to take (see photo below).
“Two weeks ago,” as Treehugger tells us, “Congress voted to strip most of that funding from the budget, leaving only a few projects to continue.”
“Rather than focus on the few corridors that need high-speed rail lines the most,” Salon.com writes, “the Obama administration doled out half a billion here and half a billion there, a strategy better-suited to currying political support than to addressing real infrastructure problems.”
$8 billion dollars seems like a lot of money (it is), however, it probably wasn’t enough to get all the routes underway. But it was a start. Rail lines would connect people and businesses to the far reaches of the south – in states like Florida, where the economy is suffering greatly. Another line would launch money to The Rust Belt for the first time in decades. Basically, connecting these places would only help bring improvement to areas that are currently, in simple terms, a pain to get to.
Why didn’t the HSR in America work out? “It comes down to politics,” adds Treehugger. “The Obama whose administration that devised the scheme for the initial rail corridors–which run primarily through red and swing states–was the Obama who still genuinely believed that he could usher in an era of bipartisan cooperation.”
“With the help of the Tea Party, they adopted the message that government spending should be our primary concern, not economic recovery.”
Source: Treehugger
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