Biden to governors: Be bold on rail

In the 70s and 80s there was the CONEG group, Council of Northeast Governors that guided much of the Northeast Corridor Project until the inevitable cutbacks and delays by the Reagan Administrations. The project was resumed under Clinton, So by 2000 this brought America up to the stage of a good European standard circa 1960 but did not give us a bullet train or TGV level of speed. To do that you need to have separate right of ways and not share the trackage with local trains and freights. To put it another way: The goal should be to design a high speed rail system that will provide 2 hours flat between Boston and New York and New York and Washington, this means top speeds of 135 mph, 107 mph average with 4 stops. This will make the airlines uncompetitive on the route and save lots of fuel, taxis fares with much higher capacity. I know this because it is the exact same distance between Tokyo and Nagoya - 214 miles - and New York and either Washington or Boston. JR East runs bullet trains every 20 minutes between Tokyo and Nagoya, their medium speed bullet, the Hikari express with bi-level cars (these must the most comfortable form of transportation on this planet) averages 107 mph with four stops. There is no scheduled shuttle-type airline service between the two cities.

I love how Joe calls the forced expropriation of money that doesn't even exist an "investment". Now that's das hopenchange.

What a joke.

It put Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook on the map...why not?

Perhaps the reason the Northeast hasn't vigorously compaigned for high speed rail dollars is the fact there are insurmountable obstacles to improving rail speeds between Boston, NYC, and DC. Gaining a safe and practical right of way between BOS-NYC would require a land use grab the likes of which we haven't seen since WWII, as well as unprecedented cooperation between state, local and national political entities, private homeowners and major and small business. Another unthinking, half baked Bidenism...

this should have been done 30 years ago

This country could really use a modern high speed rail system. However, we need to get some people in here that know what they are doing.Bring in some Germans, French, and Japanese experts that have actually done this before.

Here's a starting point for some requirements:
-It must be faster than driving.
-It must be cheaper than flying.
-Some key words to think about: faster, cheaper, convenient, reliable, safe.

In 1993 there were bills before both the Massachusetts and New York state legislatures that would have created a maglev system between Boston, Albany, and New York City along the Mass. Turnpike and New York State Thruway corridors. These magnetic levitation trains would have traveled over 200 mph, and would have made the trip between Boston and New York in less than two hours. Both legislatures, citing expense as the major issue, turned down both bills.

Another reason cited by the republical New York State Senate and republical Massachusetts governor Bill Weld for defeating the bills was concern over competition between a government-run maglev system and the airlines, which in 2001 all needed U.S. government bailouts. Democratic legislators in both states feared republical attacks on their "fiscal discipline," and voted against it.

Had the maglev system been approved it would have been fully operational by 1997, and the billions of dollars worth of bailouts for the airlines would have been largely unnecessary. Combined with alternative energy sources, that maglev system would have saved trillions of dollars in consumer and business costs, eliminated trillions of tons of greenhouse gasses, and made travel along the heavily traveled New York to Boston corridor much more efficient.

Just another example of republical stupidity, incompetence, shortsightedness, and political attacks making life worse for our children in years to come.