I do think there is a lot of room for improvement in local transit, though. Sooner or later we’re going to realize that we can’t keep adding lanes to our beltways and urban interstates, and the best thing to do would be to remove a lane or two and replace it with high volume, dependable light rail. This in and of itself does not prevent sprawl. Remember, it was the trolley lines to the outer reaches of cities that created the suburbs in the first place.

The goal should be to create the ability to move about a city in any direction at any time of day without having to get in a car.

Anyway, I agree that HSR is sensible in certain regions like the northeast, some of the Midwest, Florida, and California.

But I am trying to be a realist here, and I just don’t see Americans approving the vast amounts of money required to build all this AND fixing the basics too. Something’s gotta come first, and for me, that’s the basics.

It’s like running a treadmill. You exert the same energy that you would running a few miles, but you end up in the same place you started.

Do you really think high-speed rail is a luxury? For the capital involved, it may be. But I guarantee you that neither you nor anyone else would think of Greyhound as a luxury.

Yet high-speed rail is essentially a Greyhound bus with rocket boosters.

That is not meant as a slur against high-speed rail. It is meant to refocus our attention from thinking that high-speed rail must replace planes.

The U.S. is too big to allow for a nonstop train ride from L.A. to New York City. The train would never be as fast. However, where is the train’s competitive advantage?

It is in travel distances of 500 miles or less. Even end-to-end travel train travel would be competitive with flights. However, there is something high-speed rail can do what planes cannot: stop in the middle.

The end-to-end time for an L.A.-to-San Francisco train ride might be three or four hours. A plane is about one hour. However, that is a non-stop flight while the train stops in Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Modesto and San Jose beforehand. Imagine how unpleasant flying would be if the planes had to make those same stops. The flight might have the same time as the train ride. Yet the train can make these stops, dwell in the cities for a shorter time, and thereby move far more people than the plane can.

The airlines would still have the market of 500+ mile flights and still remain competitive.

If you want a good reason why to build high-speed rail, read Jane Jacobs’ “Cities and the Wealth of Nations.” It illustrates how cities and city regions are key to economic health. By making a few productive 500-mile city regions, as countries with high-speed rail have done, this would practically solve most of our economic problems.

Yes transit is the number 1 issue. Having a train station that then requires use of a car will not attract the same amount of passengers. You must have light rail (Street cars/trolleys) connect to it.

Yes the current transit bus stops should be improved as should the transit buses. BUT. BRT is BS. its not worth the effort. The only way to make it work is build its own right of way. If you’re going to do that, you should make it rail. Rail can carry more passengers than buses. BRT is a political cop out. Its a wrong solution and nothing but a bandaid and not real planning.

The POTUS is removed from those policies by many, many degrees of separation. He has to actively push his way into the recesses of the bureaucracy to make the lifers setting these policies follow his agenta.

Obama might do this, but if not, it’s more likely because he has a very full schedule.

If HSR is built, stations need to be built in city cores that have existing infrastructure, or at least areas ripe for TOD — not in places like Route 128-Boston.

It’s all local. I’ll believe it when I see the policies.

Also, the main Hamilton County, Indiana community that road passes through is Carmel, which is the leading city in Indiana pushing for new urbanist solutions, pedestrian and bicycle connectivity, and densification of the surburbs. The mayor of that city is also a huge transit supporter. Clearly much of the town is already developed low density suburban style, but they are working to retrofit the core of the town into a more dense, gridlike area.