Based on the status messages of many of my friends on facebook, it seems there are a lot of people excited about Obama’s new high-speed rail initiative. Thanks to our friends at NRO’s The Corner, we have a great breakdown on the total and complete fallacy of the plan:
Obama’s plan to build so-called high-speed rail in ten new corridors is unfair to taxpayers and bad for the environment. Here are the most important problems with the plan.
1. NOT TRUE HIGH-SPEED RAIL
Except in California, the trains Obama is proposing are “moderate-speed rail,” running at top speeds of 110 mph and average speeds of only 60 to 70 mph. Many American railroads ran trains this fast in the 1930s through the 1960s, and they were unable to keep people out of their cars.
Only California is proposing true high-speed rail (as fast as 220 mph), but this will be extremely expensive. A true, nationwide high-speed rail network would cost more than half a trillion dollars, and wouldn’t even provide through high-speed service from New York to Chicago, much less to the West Coast. (Obama’s plan, when fully built out, will cost about $100 billion.)
