Dr_L_Church t1_izsoz1j wrote
Reply to comment by headgasketidiot in Suppose budget was no issue. What inter-town/city rail connections would you build, either within Vermont or from places in Vermont to elsewhere? by DrToadley
But the problem is their rail lines were designed with passengers in mind from the get go, ours were designed for freight. You can’t get there from here. Not without buying hundreds if not thousands of people out of their homes to build new more direct rail lines. I’m all for investing in rail infrastructure and expanding passenger routes, but we need to be realistic about what is and isn’t possible. Routes from Burlington to Montreal or Boston are possible, but 90 minutes would require direct routes with high speed rail. Hell, 290 takes 90 minutes to get to Rutland from Burlington, only marginally faster than a car.
ButterscotchFiend t1_izsy6tb wrote
Look, what 'isn't possible' is maintaining our current level of automobile dependency.
The carbon emissions they create are literally destroying the planet's atmosphere. Within the next decades, our car-oriented infrastructure and lifestyle will flood Bangladesh and Java, starve India and Pakistan, and the refugee crisis there and elsewhere will overwhelm the rest of the world.
As for electric cars, they're a lot better, but it until a game-changing innovation in their batteries occurs, our electric grid will not be able to handle charging them assuming we are still driving at the same rate. That's also assuming we can convert most of our national fleet, which frankly is probably even more difficult a pill to swallow than the challenges you've exaggerated regarding the deployment of passenger rail.
We don't have a choice. It's either stop going from place to place, or finding a better way to do so. If we keep up our current car addiction, we're finished.
Look- this isn't that outlandish. There was a time- 1920s and 30s- when passenger rail was all across New England and America at large. The car and oil companies hastened the demise of these interurbans, but the precedent is there.
A rail revolution would be a monumental step forward for our country on so many fronts. It would be great for economic inequality, because of the regressive effect that the necessity of cars has on income. It would be great for community development, encouraging urban density and tighter rural communities, in contrast to the way that cars enabled the proliferation of the suburbs.
Dr_L_Church t1_izt7nmh wrote
What do I know, I just work for the railroad 🤷♂️. Once again I’m all for investing in rail infrastructure and expanding passenger routes, however, to call it a modest proposal for a 90 minute train ride from Burlington to Boston shows a level of ignorance in how our rail infrastructure is built in this country. The tracks just don’t go there. Also, if you were to construct new tracks from Burlington to Boston in a complete straight line, ignoring all obstacles such as private property, waterways, mountains, other infrastructure, it is a distance of 180 miles. That would require a train capable of traveling 120+ miles per hour. Amtraks Acela can travel that fast, but once again the cost to build, maintain, and operate are extraordinary and no small task. Hell, Amtrak is spending 117 billion dollars to upgrade and maintain the northeast corridor (Acela trains) over the next 15 years, and that route is already there, the rails and the signals and the sidings and the double main tracks are all already built. The cost of building a direct route capable of traveling from Burlington to Boston in 90 minutes would be hundreds of billions if not a trillion dollars and take decades to build, that is if it didn’t get hung up by act 250 and NIMBYism holing up the project left right and center. So while I would love that kind of high speed rail project in our little state, I think our money would do better to improve our existing rail network and build reliable intracity service access across Vermont.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments