Hacker News Reader

This is the strong argument against high speed rail in the USA.

We don't even have anything close to regional rail, and highspeed rail would consume all public capital that would be used to improve regional rail systems.

View on HN

Existing freight rails are so bad that passenger rail should get its own pairs of tracks in many cases (both to be higher speed and to serve the places people actually live, work and shop), and if you’re going to the expense of building new you may as well build it to support higher speeds.

> public capital that would be used to improve regional rail systems

could be used, but we all know thats not how it works ...

Commuter rail expansion and operations is the primary capital consumption area now, and there are more than a few such local / regional rail systems that could use several billion dollars each, on a continuing basis, for equipment, roadbed and station expansion.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com