Is New York Finally Getting A Real High Speed Rail? - Cheddar Explains 

Bruh moment

Of course not. Big Oil and Big Auto don't want high-speed rail in North America.

Thank you! I figured it was BS!

wish I saw this comment before wasting 9 minutes

Me who lives in New York: 😌🍷

This comment is so underrated and if Biden were an Eisenhower Republican it’d be a lot easier.

@Azeem Siddiqui man’s trying to be humorous and make fun of war-crazed people.

If we told the government that then we would probably have a transit system better than Japan in less than a decade 😭

@@piotrtrebisz6602 You are using logic and intelligent argument, you might be right but this will not work with Americans. Tell them the Martians are going to invade and take their hamburgers...you will get high-speed trains in no time !!!

But don’t tell anybody that trains make great military targets in the days of smart satellite weapons.

I commute the brentz spence bridge daily. 😑

Loving the right wing leadership?

I-75 & I-71 > 6:40 < Is this Brent Spence Bridge connecting Cincinnati, Ohio; and Covington, Kentucky?

@Sinistre Cyborg to add to this... the current governor of kentucky is a democrat, and the state boundaries make most of the bridge fall in Kentucky jurisdiction; i’m not blaming anybody or any party here, but both Republican and Democrat leadership has led in Kentucky and Ohio since the turn of the century

@@295g295 yeah

Yep. People in burbs always want it to be a commuter train type of thing, which is what the NE regional is meant for

Yep, the new york to boston route should only stop through places like new haven and providence. But politicians (esp democrat ones) want more votes from these areas so they make a twisty route.

@@daelbows5783 yea. The Republicans actually want LESS votes, we've seen how they suppress voters.

Nothing says a Republic like choosing who can vote

@@Joesolo13 were not talking about georgia rn, cuz republican's are doing bad stuff there. Im just tryna highlight that high speed rail should not go out of its way to reach many smaller cities. Instead, it should be direct and connect 2 major metropolitans centers. Unfortunately, the reality is that every major project in the US is highly politicized and is too often done for votes instead of functionality

Maybe it's just that funding has always turned into a political issue 😹

the issue is that public infrastructure funding has always been an issue of political will, not financial feasibility

'Murica's priorities lie more on weapons, military, prisons, free market and low taxes. Go ahead! The world is watching your decline with Schadenfreude.

In the United States, no governement makes any plans for public transportation. If there was new funding for public transport, what will the next election be about? Sadly, this country has been run by a strong government and powerful businessmen, the American people lose.

we can put a man on the moon but we can't build a railroad

yep. obstruction from right-wing assholes, delays leading to additional costs, lawsuits from even more assholes, and the hsr relying on costs being partially covered by fundraising efforts (which didn't happen when corporations didn't bite) led to the timeline being shoved back far more than it should have. now they're working on the top and bottom, and plan to connect the middle... sometime in 2033. It's a hot mess in that complicated way, which makes it a target for people to try and kill it every few years. So far it isn't dead yet, but people keep taking pot shots at it and try and reclaim the scraps of money left, instead of. you know, just getting together to finish the damn thing.

@@basilmemories so true

@@basilmemories What's the justification for high speed rail between declining far left run cities?

@@conveyor2 declining? You falling for right wing media?

politics

Trust in Biden! He is our savior.

@@lokivato will he still be alive to see it complete?

@@OilBaron100 no, HSR takes 10-15 years to build

Good thing Kamala is really in charge. She'll fix the border crisis in no time.

@@OilBaron100 dude checked out mentally last yr

Yeah even Mt fuji which is pretty dam close to tokyo is probably farther than 60 miles

Tokyo is 506 kilometers from Osaka

The shinkansen line is around 674 km long

@@matthewwong5150 it's 515.4km

But they do have 67 miles of tunnels. Looks like the devil is in the details.

Meanwhile America has it’s Thumb up its own ass thinking it’s the greatest country on earth while were 30 years behind everybody else

Well when you use slave labor, of course its cheaper to make stuff

@@Zones33 We Yankees, common folk, do not think it is the best in the world. The States is far behind most western nations when it comes to infrastructure, social services and transit. The computer tech and communications is still pretty good. Perhaps the new leader will spend more on these issues and less on others.

How will HSR become "more important"? Autonomous electric vehicles can travel almost anywhere without the need for railroad tracks. Also, workers are increasingly telecommuting due to covid, and lower costs & less environmental impact than travelling via rail.

@@Robert-rw5lm lol slave labor. slave labor using advanced machinery that can formulaic lay tracks 10x more efficient than california's?

Right? We spend tens of billions annually just maintaining the highways that are choking on traffic. Maybe we need to stop expanding them and start making alternatives

*laughs in Defense budget being $721.5 billion for 2020 alone.* The US is such a joke sometimes. “We can’t afford highspeed rail.” *proceeds to buy another $35 billion aircraft*

@@Joesolo13 the high speed portion is $50B tho

@@spartan117zm if we cut the defense budget by just 50 billion or around 5 percent we could build high speed rail throughout the damn country without raising spending.

@@3ladeRunner it would quite literally cost trillions to build a nationwide high speed rail network with the average cost per mile of track $80 million or higher. Don’t know where the government is going to get Germany or japans entire gdp in cash to pay for it. Not to mention the plane already serves the exact same purpose and is faster and cheaper.

Check out the B1M on this.

They plan to double track length by 2030. Then accounting for more then 80% of highspeed track.

Their fastest train averages around 65mph, which is the average speed of a commuter train in the UK, not an intercity

Because we don't need them. Cars, the interstate, and cheap domestic flights make highspeed trains an unnecessary drain of resources.

Republicans didn't want to pay for the cost of high speed rails.

Nobody would use it .

That is exactly what a high speed train shouldn’t do

@@alexismejia6870 So many people would use it are you nuts??? Have you visited the northeast corridor?

@@user1138-k5v I think you mean Northeast.

@@ArtisticlyAlexis huh?

Nah, US lagged behind because they got involved in wars and wasted trillions. If US don't go to any war abroad in next decade, I think US can build their infra pretty fast.

@@dreadfulbodyguard7288 you have to much faith in US politics 😂😂

I heard this and was like...how did they get that as the distance?? Yikes. Tokaido Shinkansen from Tokyo to Shin-Osaka is 515 km/320 miles.

@@janweber2889 I live in Japan and ride the Shinkansen constantly. When Shikansen gets into populated areas it is built on a bridge above the existing local and express trains below. Or the bridge of the Shinkansen travels above an existing street. In this way they avoided having to take up more land. Building a bridge system like this is expensive, but in the long run it is cheaper and faster than trying to buy up the land and lay track on the ground. Just saying, this is the Japanese experience.

Best I could find for that figure was one source (a BBC article) that mentioned the line had 67 miles of *tunnels*...

@@ravik694 This may be it. Of course there is no way of knowing haha. Sadly Cheddar are normally on point with their productions

The 67 miles was the first section to Odawara. To Osaka it's around 450 km if I remember correctly. That's a just under 2.5 hour journey.

Da, comrade.

I don't want to dispute your analysis, but didn't you forget to mention that most of your tax money goes into the military and prison sector? It seems to me that endless moronic warfare is the "big national exertion, America has dedicated itself to in the last decades, and with which most Americans seem quite fine with.

This is the fault of the suburbs, the ultimate form of individualism and breeding ground for it

The UK is of the same philosophy when it comes to rail, but has been forced by infrastructure restrictions to accede to high speed rail (HS1 and HS2) so they are actively doing something that the States should have done years ago which Japan did, France, Germany, Italy and Spain did some ten years later and that is to build high speed rail.

@@TIMBOWERMAN really interesting! I didn’t know this, but ultimately a lot of the success/failure doesn’t hinge on technology as much as it does on sound policy and competent bureaucracy (in the dictionary sense).

Because we aren't China...the people don't have a say in what their government spends money on, We do..and most do not want HSR...Most still love the AUTOMOBILES...

@@codyuhlmansiek805 who the fuck likes traffic? insane take

@@Fals3Agent Sorry, I love my car... I pay for the roads with my gas taxes, tolls and license fees...

@@codyuhlmansiek805 damn, what's next, you're going to tell me you love auto insurance as well? LMAO

Sorry but to be exact. China started building hi speed rail on 2008, just a year short for 15 years. And what did the government do on that same timeline? Squandered billions of it thru endless wars in the Middle East.

Shhh diam² aja

"started their own"? or is china/japan building it?

@@randomname931 Owned by Indonesia. At least Indonesia Government can deliver some good thing for the people.

@@binchen Yes, owned meaning they are paying for it, but who is doing the engineering? who manufactured the trains? who is building the tracks?

@@randomname931 china first part. Japan 2nd part.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That's not even high speed

It is for Americans, any train moving over ten baseball fields per whopper is high speed

That is high speed comparing to what they have in America

@@oromedenep how long is a baseball field ? 5 m ?

Population Density, car culture is all BS. China also has the same problems but their politicians just went ahead and built the best high speed rail network in the World. The American public is just too oblivious to the fact that The Politicians are enslaving the people to Gasoline and crappy Airlines.

@@WycliffStudios that and they're a communist dictatorship

@@darkrai24100 I agree they’re a communist dictatorship but they are smart enough to invest in infrastructure which will in turn boost their economy not foolish like American Politicians who happily dump all the money on useless things

@@WycliffStudios yes but the point of this is that they rarely have to consult the public on their plans. They can announce it and the people have to follow. They can seize property as they see fit and there isn't political opposition since they're the only party. This unwillingness has existed for centuries in the US. It isn't just now. We don't need bold changes, we need compromise and prudence. People in fact like their suburban living and cars and it isn't just some manufactured consent. The people need to be consulted and convinced or there will be only be opposition.

@@WycliffStudios also most of trains in China are built in the highly dense eastern part of country so that doesnt disprove the claims of pop. Density at all

Even in Poland regional trains are way faster

@@qzg7857 I know, same here. I‘m just talking about a small branchline, regional trains normally hit about 160 km/h (100 mph) here with the fastest even going 200 km/h (125 mph)... America has a lot of catching up to do...

We have slow speed limits for rail, the maximum without ATS is 79, ATS allows for 110

German ICE trains are today probably the slowest high speed trains...🙄😒

That is average over the trip, acela does do 140+ in sections, but accounting for its many stops and poor Rail it's restricted many places. one tunnel near DC was built in the 1880s and trains can only do 25mph through it.

And i love the automobile, I can get from point A to point B and visit areas. I can bring my boat with me and I can either take my friends or if i want to be alone, i can be. On a train, you be with people....

@@codyuhlmansiek805 That is on the premise of having a lot of time to spare. Travel by car takes more time than trains.

@@codyuhlmansiek805 And it's nice when there is no traffic. There is tons on the Northeast. A reliable, fast train line would alleviate car traffic.

@@ziyanyang9777 But does it really depend on where your going? Trains are A to B only. Cars are limited only by your imagination.

you don't have the speed needed to go between population centers in North America and Australia in any reasonable period of time, though.

Why not simply build a bus LRT right-of-way using the *existing Interstate highway system* quicker and at far less cost than rail?

@@djm5687 Cause High Speed Rail is WAAAY faster than Light rail. That's only meant for city transport, not intercity transport, which is something America desperately needs. As a New Yorker with no FAST, cheap, and reliable way to get to DC, Philly or Boston, HSR would be a huge boon as it would make visiting friends and family much easier, and massively expand job opportunities allowing us to not only work in New York, but also all of these other cities.

@@darienmiller1032 If there are jobs that are "desperately needed" in Boston, people can just *move* to Boston. Also, businesses are increasingly having their employees telecommute, therefore making HSR rather pointless. The Concorde was the fastest passenger airplane, but only a few rich people used it. HSR will be very expensive and will only be used by a few rich people.

Seattle to San Diego is a total waste of money. That involves way too much (very expensive) real estate and even at 160 mph with minimal stops (yeah right) it would still take all day. A plane is a better option for that route.

@@djm5687 The Concorde went out of business due to lack of fuel efficiency and and failing to compete in fuel economics with other fleet. A missing piece to fully make the HSR viable for construction and accessible from a socioeconomic perspective is regional transportation links. Smaller towns should connect to HSR hubs through light rail, bus, and rideshare. The ticketing system must be streamlined, in many European and Asian cities, blockchain and open banking implementation has made it a lot easier and cheaper for people to travel, meaning that you don't even need a physical wallet to buy a ticker, just buy in the app and scan when boarding similar to digital boarding passes at airports. HSR is only expensive in the US because transportation departments throughout the states lack in proper expertise required to find an equilibrium where resource allocation, construction time and funding are balanced out strategically. What eventually ends up happening is that they choose the lowest bidder for construction of any huge project, that bidder will ask for more and more eventually causing a budget overrun. In addition to that there is the lobbying from automakers and fossil fuel industry as well as disputes between property owners. The best case to solve this problem is to sign a 3P joint venture to form a lease consortium, and ask for proper consultancy from world renowned high-speed rail companies like SNCF or Deutsche Bahn for at least a decade so that institutions within the transport sector can inherit the expertise, adapt and then independently develop any strategic planning and management of transit related things.

My thought too 🤔

The sad reality is that your political system allows for shady elements to attach to it and suck the funds out. People know it, hence the endless discussions on financing.

By American standards they are...🙄😒

Depending on variant, it can do up to 140 km/h, which is pretty fast compared to Amtrak's usual speed.

Investing in crypto now should be in every wise individuals list, in some months time you'll be ecstatic with the decision you made today.

I totally agree with that

Crypto is the new gold

I tried investing once but withdrew due to the fluctuations in price

You are right, in the past I tried trading on my own but made almost no profit until I was link to a professional, the result was exceptional

Its almost succedeed on 1965 via "High Speed ground transportation act" but failed in Congress by Bipartisan GOP

To quote a show, thats the price of living in a free society Gordo. Can't just seize land or pay people $10/day

The U.S has labour unions for each sector of the economy. The builders union is the one that usually makes infrastructure lag behind because they get paid for the amount of time they work and they are also paid by government, which grossly overestimate costs and they don't care about the time it takes to do things. While in China the workers don't have unions, which is why China's labour is so cheap, there's an abundance of workers and things are produced cheaper while the government makes sure that companies who build the infrastructure are overseeing that it all finishes in time.

Its one thing to build it quickly its another to maintain it. The initial cost of building doesn't take into consideration the prolong cost of maintenance. Many of these high speed rail are not even paying for themselves.

@@jrr6947 high speed rail workers in China are around 2500 dollars per month, but the price and life cost of China is much lower than the western world. Much lower, and these workers don’t even need to pay the taxes, and the government never bothered them

And here comes the "but they..." excuses.

Same

You sound like a commie

@@anguszhou4340 elaborate how he does ...

@@anguszhou4340 is that bad?

@@anguszhou4340 Red star train go choo choo,

I would like more information about what your talking about. What road? Where? Was it really shutdown on purpose, or was it some event that caused it to longer be usable? (Like if a major bridge fails, you tend to get a lot of effort to build its replacement, but if the old bridge was still functional, it takes a lot longer to get replaced)

@@galnetdor @S Back It was an old twoway road with heavy traffic and a lot of accidents. and yes people closed the road on purpose to make the local governments complete 2 new lanes (to become a total of 4 lanes). I saw the pictures of this event. there was some people sitting on the road with pictures of people who died in the accidents and a few kilometers of traffic. The road is near an small town in Iran called alavijeh.

If you think American drivers would let that happen, you're insane. They'd have half the invasion force that took Iraq out there clearing away anyone who tries to shut down a major U.S. highway - and that's if the commercial trucks don't decide to let their foot off the break a little early. ;)

They mentioned it and said it averaged 65 mph

Great point, Jan. It's hard for people who don't understand the details of trains to make videos like this.

You ever wonder why regulations are so tight on rail ? Is it because of lobby by the airlines and auto industry ?

@@ahmedzakikhan7639 Because the FRA is stuck in the 20th century when it comes to railroad best practices.

It’s relativity. As you approach the speed of light distances shrink

Simply import cheap labor from states with lower minimum wage and buy the land during economic down turns. Offer the land holder bellow market price during these times. Then save up over time.

Of course train go train

Big brr

but it should go wooosh

nah they go woooshhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Considering that Germany got to rebuild most of its infrastructure using US Marshal Plan aid from the ground up because it got blown to f*** in World War II it is not surprising, and Germany is smaller and its major cities are much closer together and even within them they are more compact, making public transit much more realistic.

@@williammerkel1410 yea but the reason they're compact is because of that transit, not vice versa. You don't get Houstons naturally, they come about from building for cars instead of people

@@Joesolo13 and the fact that after World War II lots of people wanted to move out of the cities, there was genuine demand for suburbia and everything that came with it, including cars. When you give people freedom of choice they will use it, and it isn't right to deny them that.

One thing you’ve to understand is that in the United States, Canada & Mexico, railroads are not nationalized; they’re privately owned by the companies that built them-and the vast majority are freight companies. Passenger companies, like Amtrak & Via Rail, have to pay trackage rights (a form of lease agreement) to freight companies to use their track. But since they’re on someone else’s tracks, they don’t get the right of way; passenger trains will often have to go into to the siding and wait for the oncoming freight train to pass by, which is time consuming and a big reason why passenger trains don’t always arrive on time. So it would make sense in this context to build completely new track primarily, if not only, for passenger use-despite it being costly

@@williammerkel1410 Which is why it is feasible have alternatives to driving for maximum freedom possible: people who want to drive can drive, people who cannot drive (disability, age, health, etc.) can still travel as well.

Username checks out!

What's even more ironic is that local train travels faster then most passenger trains in North America. 😅

It is now a Chinese train...

the population centers in the USA are a lot further apart. Los Angeles and San Francisco are about that distance, but the HSR currently being built, if completed as currently planned, would take about four hours. (it's a politically chosen route. There's a faster route, along Interstate 5, that would only take two hours, similar to the Spanish train....but I still wouldn't support that at the cost proposed, which is 100 billion. I'd support it at say 5 billion.) The plane trip is one hour. But the next major city NORTH of San Francisco is Seattle, about 800 miles away (1287 km). The plane takes two hours to get there, an HSR would take at least four hours. The next major city EAST of San Francisco is probably Dallas, Texas, about 1734 miles away (2790 km). 3 hrs on a plane, 6 hours on HSR. See the difference?

@@neutrino78x Yeah but anyone arguing for a national HSR network is stupid. You could extend CHSR to Las Vegas (Brightline West) and into Arizona. Then there's the Texas Triangle, with potential to link with Monterrey in Mexico. There's Florida, which Brightline is currently working on. The Cascades corridor between Portland and Vancouver. The Great Lakes/Midwest mainly around Chicago and in Ohio, stretching from Minneapolis to Pittsburgh and Nashville/Memphis. And of course the Northeast corridor, which you could improve and lengthen all the way down to Atlanta. Noone would ride a train from Atlanta to Boston, but all the infill connections would make it work. But before the US works on High Speed Rail it should build a solid foundation imo. Work on regional and basic Intercity rail. Electrify more rail infrastructure. Eliminate more zoning regulations and stuff like parking minimums to induce greater density and speed up housing construction. Rail is difficult in suburbia because suburbia serves the car and nothing else. So honestly, a lot has to change in North America, but the potential is definitely there. Basic point is in any case that you don't need a national HSR network, otherwise you end up doing a China and drowning in debt with empty trains, you need to asses what makes sense and then throw a shitload of money at it. Maybe the US could use some money on public transit instead of that bloated 900bn dollar defense budget that is just sheer lunacy.

@@michelangelobuonarroti4958 "Yeah but anyone arguing for a national HSR network is stupid. " Agree, but same is true for anything longer than about 200 miles, since the train craps out at around 200 mph. Unless you're talking maglev, then make it 500. (but that's a lot more expensive, so, in most cases, still doesn't pass a cost/benefit analysis.) "You could extend CHSR to Las Vegas (Brightline West)" I fully support Brightline West.....BECAUSE IT IS PRIVATE TRANSPORTATION THAT WILL BE OWNED BY BRIGHTLINE WEST. CAHSR is basically a failed project. No more construction is being done beyond Merced to Bakersfield (per the Governor, who was just re-elected). "Then there's the Texas Triangle, " Too far for public transit. If Texas Central hasn't gone under and wants to that, more power to them. I heard they went bankrupt though? "And of course the Northeast corridor, which you could improve and lengthen all the way down to Atlanta. Noone would ride a train from Atlanta to Boston, but all the infill connections would make it work." Nope. Too far. Airplane MUCH, MUCH, MUCH FASTER. "Maybe the US could use some money on public transit instead of that bloated 900bn dollar defense budget that is just sheer lunacy." Sorry, we need to defend ourselves from our enemies, that's not an optional thing. I was a submariner. The details are classified but it's not classified that we (USA/UK/France) are on a nuclear hair trigger against China and Russia. Note that Britain and France also have large nuclear arsenals. They are much smaller countries though, so they don't need to spend 900 billion to get the same level of defense. Anyway, what's the point? Why would we spend 900 billion on transit when airplanes are so much faster? It's stupid. I take it you're from some small European country and just don't understand the scale involved? See the video "Why Doesn't America Do High-Speed Rail?" from "Across the Pond". He is from Britain and has lived here in the USA for some time, he explains the scale involved and why it's not feasible.

They don't have those running commercially, though. Yet...

@@ApemanMonkey technically China had 1 that is but they didn't build more for a reason

Population Density, car culture is all BS. China also has the same problems but their politicians just went ahead and built the best high speed rail network in the World. The American public is just too oblivious to the fact that The Politicians are enslaving the people to Gasoline and crappy Airlines.

@@WycliffStudios China also has one party that controls everything. The US has 2 parties that only fight with each other and complain when the other side “dares” to actually propose a useful infrastructure project 4 months after taking over, despite the fact that they had 4 YEARS to come up with something, but ultimately had nothing to put on the table.

@@WycliffStudios what can you expect from the country that is run by Car ( (G)privateMotors ) and Oil Giants

I expected more comments like this or at least one with more likes. The sound was way too quiet. The ads by contract were jarringly loud.

You're assuming it would stay on schedule. In all likelihood it would still be 20 years away and already over budget by now.

We need incremental improvements to our rails, not big flashy stunts like CAHSR that garner alot of opposition. Basic things like speed, reliability, frequency, cost decreases, electrification.

Australia and Canada doesnt have too, are they "behind"? High speed trains arent a requisite to anything. It makes sense in some places, and in others dont

@@rodrigopaim82 Take canda for example, Most of the country's population is too spread out to make rail transit viable beyond local commuter rail around Metropolitan areas. Same with Australia. But the US has great possibilities with rail in connecting the medium distance areas; to short for plane trips, but too far for a car.

@@lynx9373 ehh... look parts of Ontario and Quebec... those areas are pretty dense.

@@lynx9373 yeah and their not competing countries for Number 1 superpower status, America is, so if America doesn't want to be a powerful country anymore. Then sure let's sit here and let our infrastructure fall and refuse to build 21st Century infrastructure like HSR.

Where behind in everything except military equipment. Maybe we can ride a jet to work or have a tank pave our roads. & Our kids can shoot a gun before reading.

Know how long the highways took to build?

@@Joesolo13 that's not even comparable. the interstate system spans the entire country. It's in no way an analogue to a single rail line. Even if you look at a single interstate, those that do have long term construction periods ended up being degraded in places after such long construction periods.

Yea an additional tunnel's badly needed just so the old ones can be properly repaired and modernized. Hard to do work when there's no way to close it for more than a few hours at a time

One of the unspoken issues here is that nobody wants to give taxpayer dollars to states like New Jersey or New York where it will be wasted. These states are corrupt, financial disasters and will squander ever dollar they are given to build something like this.

Hudson tunnel is the main bottleneck on the NEC right now. The next major bottleneck are the Baltimore tunnels.

Improving current tracks can maybe give you 10% or so boost. But nowhere near the HSR level. HSR need much straighter route and then much fewer stops.

The Northeast Corridor has some of the oldest tracks in the USA and also, some of the bridges are drawbridges over rivers and Connecticut towns have control over when the bridges can close, since some towns get taxes from boaters...

They can't. It's aging with curves that can't handle those speeds. New maglev technology from Washington DC to Boston is what's needed.

@@r.d.9399 It doesn't even have to be a maglev. A new dedicated route with conventional rail might interest to those cheapskates. Ah, wait. They could be that cheap to not even consider that.

And that's the problem. You can't magic up those lines overnight - it takes time to requisition land, demolish whatever's already on that land and then construct the new line. And permits and red tape and hassle every step of the way across.. not sure if its 2 or 3 states? Wasn't paying enough attention to the route but a lot of governments to deal with nonetheless. Honestly the 20 year time frame is probably harder to get Congress to swallow than the $100bn price tag. I mean that won't be easy either of course, but Congress tends to think in election cycles and 20 years is a hell of a lot of elections.

Basic infrastructure is barely ever directly profitable. The profits are in a general improvement of the economy and quality of life. The road network also costs way more than it earns - do you also complain about that?

@@stephanweinberger Where am I complaining? I'm saying that in my opinion it is more important to spend money on infrastructure for commuters, millions of whom use public transport every day, than on high speed trains, which are primarily a showpiece of national, state-supported railroad companies. You can only spend money once and as you can see in densely populated countries like the Netherlands and Belgium, or in large agglomerations, good public transport for commuters is crucial for the quality of life and very important against traffic jams. It yields much more to bring millions of people in NY to work every day quickly and safely by train than a few thousand to Philadelphia or Boston. Have you ever been to the Netherlands and experianced how a well structured commuter serving railnetwork is?

"Meanwhile commuter trains in for instance Germany are old and shabby" Where you got that from? The vast majority of regional commuter trains in Germany are pretty modern. The average age of American rolling stock for local rail is MUCH older...and the state of disrepair and aging infrastructure (with ancient signaling in many cases) is more of an American than a German problem. Germans are the ultimate complainers, so they will paint a worse picture of rail in Germany, but there are only a handful of countries that have better rail infrastructure. I agree with your point that money is better invested in commuter trains..

@@tzarcoal1018 there id only a handfull of countries richer than Germany. Where I got it from? I moved from the Netherlands to Germany, Trains in the Netherlands are commuter centerd and very much more modern. The only modern trains I have seen in Germany are the ICE and the small private train operators.

@@BeaglefreilaufKalkar okay yes NL is very good, a bit better than Germany. But in Germany at least in 2021, the vast majority of REs, RBs and whatever is very modern. I see an advantage in interconectibility in the Netherlands, but that is also due to geography... When it comes to trains being "old and shabby" the two countries are mostly on the same level, a pretty good one. There are exception but overall the trains are fairly modern in both countries. When did you move? Comparing what WAS the standard when you left in Germany to what IS the standard now is not really fair. I was in the Netherlands 2 times in the last years, but only for some weeks, i used the trains there and was pretty happy with it, but not so drastically different than what we have in Germany. I do agree that there is some pride and prestige involved in long distance high-spedd rail, but they are not entirely useless either. NL has a different Focus, but NL has a different Focus, because they have just a different geography / demographic distrobution.

Simply repopulate areas with low paid workers, build cheap rentals and create business zones with low taxes. Problem solves?

If the rail network crosses borders in similar vein to Europe, maybe fleeing the country too?

125 mph is not high speed rail. The Acela is not high speed rail even though it goes 160 mph in some sections.

@@thechickenstew3716 According to wikipedia "new lines in excess of 250 kilometres per hour (160 mph) and existing lines in excess of 200 kilometres per hour (120 mph) are widely considered to be high-speed."

@@YEETMAN-dt9mb in *excess* of 200kph (125 miles per hour). that means trains that travel faster than 125 mph are HSR. And HSR has to run on dedicated tracks.

@@thechickenstew3716 200km/h? You call that high-speed?

@@bartholomewdan that’s congress’s definition and much of the world’s definition.

we should be doing both

Lmaooo none of these projects are inspired by HS2, British high speed trains are garbage

@@mrbrainbob5320 it’s true, and HS2 is a shambles. A lot of the costs are due to difficult right of way agreements, and it’s well-known you don’t start seeing proper economies of scale with just one short line. You need a whole network to get the cost per mile down to something reasonable. Yet HS2 even chickened out of going up to Manchester and Glasgow, and will keep using the WCML for those routes but slower than the current Pendolinos. It’s a total mess.

@@kaitlyn__L its part of why China got theirs cheap. They've got a HSR industry mass-producing everything needed, not tepid build outs in a piecemeal manner

@@mrbrainbob5320 and how much experience have you personally had with HS1 (Eurostar)? Anyway - it would seem there are more high speed trains in just England than the entire USA…

@@AsherBC ah yes that 1 line that goes to Europe lmaooo

1 African nation and that’s Morocco with less than 1 physician per capita, but hey high speed train.

Yes, we can afford cars, and planes...and fuel.

Only if it makes no stops or encounters no trains in front of it along the way.

But it's so illogical. Why would they make a tunnel through Sound when they could hit up New Haven and Bridgeport without doing the whole environmentally concerning and financially inefficient tunnel thing?

@@raucousraptor Property values on Long islands north shore LI, and CT essentially destroy any hope of this becoming real

Right, because we now care about the environment, safety, and the people that infrastructure projects displace-- things we didn't consider 50+ years ago

@@jared_du_jour Population is also another factor. Even so, our better technologies should migate those factors that slows us down to some extent.

We have to make sure any construction project is not going to harm the planet. We have people blocking projects to make sure it won't harm anything...

@@codyuhlmansiek805 The efficiency of trains per passenger is appealing, energy consumption-wise.

@@codyuhlmansiek805 @Jared Schwatz I'd say that over here in Europe environmental and work safety regulations a re at least as if not more strict than in the US. Still we manage to build most infrastructure projects in a fraction of the time...

Brightline East: *Don’t doubt me mere mortal*

@@AFoxGuy it's because it's private, I think

Though Europe has even more bullshit bureaucracy, even higher labor cost and naggy unions and the budget airline industry in Europe is even larger than the one in the US.

Maybe North America will get a maglev before a hyperloop.

And Metro-North is owned by the MTA, which is a NY agency.

@@AVeryRandomPerson true. but ig the MTA is not any better, esp with Cuomo micromanaging everything

Isn't it amazing that the states with the highest tax burdens are the same ones that are "broke?"

D349, You are correct...Florida, where I live, is not raising taxes...and might be giving us two tax breaks...

I bet the planning has started already. To be finished planning 20 years from now. You just got to love American bureacracy at work.

@@marktrinidad7650 I think they've already finished the environmental impact study for the first leg, so now they're contending with NIMBY-ism along the planned route.

Don't forget space elevators and colonies on the moon. Common', start thinking BIG.

Are you kidding, Silicon Valley is still going strong and shows no signs of going away any time soon. We are very much the world center of innovation. We already have a system of high speed vehicles to get from one area to another, it's called jet aircraft. It goes a lot faster than HSR for a small fraction of the cost.

The U.S. could do this too, except we abolished slavery a long time ago. Although I'm sure the Democrats have dreams every night of labor camps for anyone who opposes them politically.

I thought south asia had the worst public transportation 👀👀

he'll accidentally build it in the sky

In 2040, I'll probably be DEAD.

builld that shit faster then.. build different sections at the same time. The time you build the tunnel under long island sound build the elevated sectiont from connecticut to Boston via Rhode Island. The same with the rest of the sections in NY. Do the same for midwest regional line, DC to atlanta regional line, and the same for califronia and the cities in the deep south too.

Nah, once it's actually complete, it'll be something like a billion over budget. That's how all infrastructure projects are

It does have 67 miles of tunnel. Devil is in the details.

That capacity is also ridiculously low compared to a regional train.

BRT has higher maintenance costs and lower capacity than light rail. Only thing for BRT is lower initial construction costs, and in the richest country on the earth you'd which for those not to be a problem

You're so right. It's funny because despite all the "cars are better!" comments you see our highway system hasn't really been improved or expanded at all in nearly 30 years.

The rails are fine.you just saw the s@$ty chartiety case that exsit cuase mot many want to ride trains. The real meat is in freight trains the system supporting America.

​@@starandfox601 😂 You're funny trying to turn freight against passenger rail. Nobody is saying it has to be one or the other. You wanna bring more freight around America? That's awesome!

@@crazy808ish but the reality is it is one or the other. Amtrak is so slow cuase it has to weight for freight trains.since freight gets priority on US rails. While other countries it's passnager trains that get priority and freight has to wait for them. Making freight wait might not seem like iusse.but in the US it is cuase the US is producer and needs to ship at goods in mass has fast has it can.esipceally goods that go bad fast like food products.

@@starandfox601 That's true for current passenger rail. And it's also why people want new high speed rail lines. Not the same old freight based lines. Freight can have it's own lines, nobody's taking those away.

*Rest of the world*- Yes you are

@@MercenaryPen European here, average speed of 104km/h is on par with lower-end regional trains here. Checks out.

Yes you are because your tracks can't handle the speed

Not just car companies.it litarily makes no sense to have them.

@@starandfox601 well, it does. But you know what doesn't make sense? Driving a car from town to town when your streets have a 95 mph speed limit. Germany has 120 to unlimited highways and still is operating one of the fastest bullet trains in Europe.

@@TheKartoffel101 it really doesn't.it only makes sense to your dumb but that doesn't understand how transportation works. Germany is smaller then the US and has a greater population density.so it makes prefect sense for a country like Germany to have trains. The US is way bigger then Germany considering 1 state is about the same size has a avrage sized country.also the population isn't that dense.so it makes zero sense to have trains.esipceally going to small towns.

@@starandfox601 exactly a train ride doesn't make as much sense in Germany as it would in the US the longer the distance the more important speed becomes. No wonder the US is going downhill if the average person is as dumb as you. A primary school student knows that. When you have a 347.42-mile distance and one car is travelling at 95 mph, while the other car is travelling at 200 mph and has to make a brake 5 times on the way. Each stop takes 7 minutes. Which one reaches faster the destination and at what time? Tip: mph means Miles Per Hour.

@@TheKartoffel101 you are the dumb one considering you think speed is the main factor in train usability.when it's population density. When it's population density. You are the idiot. The train may take less time.but what happens when you get off the train?you can't really walk any where like you could in a high density populated area like Germany.oh yeah that's right rent a car and spend on a ton money after paying for train ticket. Tip:trains are only useful for walkable high density aeras.not where everything is spread out. Have you ever been to the US?have you ever had to deal with the logistics of transportation? I bet you haven't.