From the Austin American-StatesmanBy Deborah HastingsASSOCIATED PRESS
Sunday, April 12, 2009
To many Americans, high-speed trains evoke the gee-whiz factor of a trip to Tomorrowland: Ride futuristic cars that zoom you to a destination in a fraction of the drive time, without having to fight your way through an airport. Read a book, do paperwork, take a nap while you whoosh ahead in high-speed comfort.
To governments, high-speed trains evoke benefits to the common good: reduced freeway traffic, lower carbon pollution and more jobs.
But this country has never built a high-speed "bullet" train rivaling the successful systems of Europe and Asia, where passenger railcars have blurred by at top speeds nearing 200 mph for decades. Since the 1980s, every state effort to reproduce such service has failed. The reasons often boil down to poor planning and simple mathematics.
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