I would love to see a low pollution high speed rail system in place I would use it all the time but the problem with the US is SIZE it's huge! if you go to england and say "hey lets go to france today" everyone freaks out france is 70 miles away we can't go that far! "oh my god you yanks are insane!"
Yet I regularly drive to Orlando to go to disney... (get this) to eat at a RESTURANT AT EPCOT THAT ME AND MY WIFE LIKE! We don't even do the park we drive down (147 miles) eat and watch the fireworks then drive home! Now don't get me wrong we love to go for the weekend and stay but it's not a foregone conclusion by any means!
Or another example my dad and I got a wild hair and went and played golf in Savannah about two weeks ago... left at 8 am got on the course about 10:30-11 played 4hrs and drove home... round trip had to be 250+ miles!
I drive over to the gulf to dive all the time even if I go here in jax I have to go 15-40 MILES offshore in a boat that gets nothing like good mileage... if I go over to the gulf in my EXCURSION (yes flame away I don't care) I get 13-16 mpg highway so thats 20 gallons fuel roundtrip (give or take a smidge) then the boat gets about 3 miles to the gallon (Its based on gallons per hour not mile so this is an estimate I may be WAY off in either direction) so then I'm out 30-40 gallons in the boat I've used aprox 60 gallons of fuel in one day!!!!! But what's the alternative? I can't even foresee electric boats and to pull my 6000lbs boat? A honda hybrid? Ain't gonna happen my friends, wish it would! Even if they put in a rail system how do you get a 25ft boat on a train?
As "insane yanks" we take all this for granted but how much would it cost to run a high speed rail for the two trips that I COULD take the train? BILLIONS maybe even TRILLIONS! We voted for a high speed rail several years ago here in florida and then in Nov we repealed it as financialy unfeasable...
My mom works as a paralegal for CSX and the company is billions in debt! They can't afford to stay open much less post a profit! The gov't bails them out on a daily basis... Most of the people who are in "control" aren't evil genuses who are trying to keep this stuff under wraps! They are just like you and me they would like to see more enviromentaly frendly stuff but it's the implementation that is so hard...I don't know what the solution is but it's mpt going to be easy it is however easy to point fingers (right Rush?) real solutions ain't that easy baby...