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Back to the Future <br /> <br />Back in the 70's the Dept of Transportation attempted to keep all the NASA employs that were then being laid off and the air craft industry that was in a world of hurt after the SST was canceled properly occupied until they retired or new defense contracts were issued by entering into a big high speed transportation research program which gave rise to the Transportation Technology Center near Purblo Colo. That was kind of interesting in that one wondered a little about how serious the goverment was when one saw a RS1 switching the Linear Induction Motor test vehicles but over about ten years DOT spent millions and got two high speed programs approved for inter city validation projects. That was as far as it went. The cost of aquiring land and building the infrastructure was 9 significat figures .Something like 1500 miles of LIM track would cost 100 billion dollars to aquire land for and to build. On top of that the systems had to exist out in the toolies so that they and the public would not interact improperly . The NIMBY movement wouldn't let them widen the existing interstates so the polititans gave up and decided that what ever inter city passenger rail systems that were created would have to live on freight railroad tracks. Another point was that the Japanese bullett trains which have arround two hundred miles of right of way costs about 10 billion a year to maintain. You would never be able to run fast between major US cities in that part of the track would always be slow ordered for maintanance. With the observation that the air line industry in the US is in a world of hurt , that the NIMBYs have attacked them too , and that we have grid lock in most major cities we need an integrated system of public funded ground transportation much like METRA in Chicago but larger in scope. I don'tthink that anyone would have built the interstate high\way system if they had even a slight thought of what it would cost to own. Rail based systems operating at moderate speeds don't cost anywhere as much to own and can carry five times the passenger density of an interstate on one third of the realestate. We just need to send some one with a good box of Crayons to Washington to explain that to John McCain.
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