overbudget, expensive ticket prices, insane delays, corner cutting, missing deadlines. America is allergic to building high-speed rail. Every single project has either been strangled or faced significant hurdles.
And I know what DJ Khaled said, life is Roblox, BUT THIS IS TOO MUCH. Highspeed rail is like the LeBron of transportation. It's fast.
It's efficient. It's cool. It's the absolute goat.
Nations around the world have mastered high-speed rail systems for decades. France has the TGV. Spain has the Talgo thingies.
And Japan has the Shink Concent. But here in the good old USA, we do have the AILA, which is basically a nerfed version of the TGV. America has different priorities.
Bro, we don't even [ __ ] with regular passenger rail anymore. This [ __ ] is tragic. >> WE HAD A GOOD THING, YOU stupid son of a [ __ ] It was perfect, but no, you just had to blow it up.
Now, some of you may be wondering, hm, how come the United States does not have highspeed rail? The easy answer, we think cars are cooler. The three main hurdles in Burger Land are money, culture, and politics.
There are more reasons, but I'm too lazy to include them. I just know there's going to be some bubblegum brain ass [ __ ] in the comment section that's going TO BE LIKE, "IT'S A SCAM. IT WON'T WORK.
WASTE OF MONEY. JUST FLY. " LISTEN HERE, BRIAN, my fellow suburban Gen X guy.
I know you love your least GMC Sierra, but some of us want the convenience of rail travel. Cars are inherently inefficient, and airports are not a private company success story. So shut the [ __ ] UP AND GO TO GIRLS ON TIK TOK.
>> Sorry I lost my chill there. I appreciate all feedback. To be honest, I think the critics are somewhat valid, but the benefits are too juicy to put the kibos on the whole thing.
What are you going to do for us? I'm a magician. Oh well, good luck.
WE TAKE A bottle becomes a glass. Where did it go? It's in my >> The first challenge is the most significant money.
Highspeed rail is not in fact cheap. It's literally cheaper everywhere else. The US government doesn't even try to make it cheaper.
There's no national mandate. So there's no standardized designs. All the [ __ ] they're doing is literally just a side quest.
>> George Bush doesn't care about real infrastructure. US highspeed rail projects are exactly that, projects not continuously improving utility. It's like ordering your entire breakfast from Starbucks.
All the employees are pissed off because they have to pop the [ __ ] croissant in the microwave. The croissant tastes like [ __ ] and IT COSTS LIKE $45. THE THING THAT really blows up the price though is acquiring the rightway and the soft costs that go along with it.
Soft costs are like the boogeyman for these things. If you propose the absolute slightest, most tiny insincy zoning change, a bunch of Kairens are going to show up to your local town hall. That town hall is going to smell like Godzilla's coochie.
Add up all of those factors together, including the dreadful mismanagement, and it makes sense why California highspeed rail has mutated into this expensive [ __ ] show. Reason number two, culture. Americans and car obsession is no joke.
>> Who would you be driving when you're older? >> 87 Chevy last pickup. >> What's your second choice?
>> 87 Chev pickup. >> What makes it a good vehicle? 87 Chev.
A car is not just a tool here. It's an extension of someone's soul. IS THAT A SUPRA?
>> IT HASN'T REACHED some people's minds yet that there could be an alternative to driving. Reason number three, US politics, business, law, and politics in this country is where all reasoning skills go to death. The United States is essentially a country made up of hundreds of nations.
Inside those hundreds of nations, there's hundreds of tribes. So, everything is very fragmented. There's a lot of lag between all the systems.
So that's why anytime there's a push for something that sounds reasonable but people still have mixed feelings on, it's going to have like a thousand ping on that [ __ ] Proposing highspeed rail lines has been known as a political suicide. American politics heavily incentivize short-term gains over long-term solutions. Combine that with the high upfront costs and the amount of time it takes to even build the damn thing, the political atmosphere is an absolute minefield for these projects.
A very important detail that I would like to mention is that HSR kind of operates the best in a Goldilock zone. Too far away to drive but too close to fly. So, right around 120 mi to 450 mi.
That's going to include a lot of counties, a lot of small cities, HOAs, all the people are going to want to put up a fight. Critics of HSR will be like, "It'll never work. Too much money.
Everything is too far away from each other. " And then pro highspeed rail people will be like, "Nuh-uh, look at China. " And I think it's less about distance and more about density.
I feel like a bottom up approach would be much more effective in the long run. Starting off with some good old urban planning and transit and then eventually building the shiny bullet trains. It's best for us right now to mainly focus on the boring regular passenger rail.
While highspeed rail in this country looks down, passenger rail is looking up. Amtrak recently broke their record for wrership numbers. We got new regional rail routes like the Borealis and significant upgrades to the current systems like the new Amtrak Ailia sets that go 160 mph.
The Amtrak Lincoln service now operates at 110 mph. I have personally used it multiple times. It works like a charm.
The biggest issue with Amtrak though is the freight railroads absolutely choking the [ __ ] out of them. But yeah, thank you so much for watching. Let me know what you think about highspeed rail in the comments and I'll catch you later.
