How about instead of spending money repaving and widening highways, we invest in intercity high speed rail? How are we going to compete with Europe when as gas prices continue to climb in the next decades? Updated roads won't do us a lot of good if they are too expensive to use.

Or how about upgrading the power grid? Electricity is a major necessity in our society, for our economy and national security. Right now our grid is a huge weakness -- it wouldn't take much for terrorists to knock out power to huge swaths of the country, and to keep it off for a long time. We also need the ability to transmit green power from where is is created to population centers.

When Obama is seeking reelection, doesn't he want to be able to say he accomplished something great? Or just that improved sections of I-95?

Good point. If railways are developed alongside more efficient power systems, a real "post-petrol" era might come to be. There's also the drop in greenhouse gases that would follow more public transit, but strictly in terms of economy and national security, anything that reduces America's reliance on oil would be swell.

Abandon our desperately flailing around excuse for an auto industry that's living 30 years in the past? Do we really want to take that plunge just so we can upgrade to a vastly more efficient system like the rest of the developed world?

I totally agree. I like the idea of an intercontinental high speed railroad. It would take about as long to cross the country as it would to fly (including security, checkin, flight delays etc.) and would be more comfortable...and...yeah that oil dependency thing.

However we can't do this because as an American I am so obsessed with the author's sex life that I can't see that our country is in real trouble right now.

High speed rail only works in densely populated areas. It would absolutely not take 5 hours to cross the country by rail (about how long it takes to fly from say Boston to San Fran).

High speed rail makes a lot of sense along the northeast corridor to link up cities such as Boston, NY, DC, Philadelphia and Baltimore. The current Amtrak Acela system is not really high speed..that would require vast improvements to the actual railways. In addition, the Acela currently shares railways with non-highspeed and even commuter trains! Furthermore, the reason it costs so much is because some of the money is used to cross-subsidized the extremely unprofitable long cross-country routes.

We need a rail line that is usef soley for high speed passenger and perhaps parcel transport..but only in high density areas (maybe along West Coast too and around Texas?)

(Someone who had the misfortune of working on an Amtrak project).

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that High-Speed rail was most efficient *between* high density areas? Since they take awhile to get up to maximum speed, where the benefits are greatest, high-speed rail is really efficient between major population centers, but not within them. If the numbers haven't changed much from the last time I researched a year or so ago, Nasochkas is right that it would take longer to cross the country by high-speed rail than in a plane...but rail would be quicker than air or auto between Seattle and Portland or San-Fran and LA. The distance between cities in the west really makes them ideal places for truly high speed rail!

Of course, truly high-speed rail needs it's OWN infrastructure to be efficient and safe (Trains cannot run at high speed on a track which makes sharp turns, for instance, no matter what the train). That comes up against property rights and $$$ money problems, but if we're seriously finally considering what big infrastructure improvements we could make - well, I think that expenditure would be well worth it. Not easy by any means, but worth it.

The fastest recorded was in japan at 581 km/h. That's 361mph. This roughly works out to taking 8 hours to travel 3000 miles. I'm arguing that a 5 hour flight plus delays plus lines plus security plus checkins isn't much shorter than that. With investment in it the technology can improve and go even faster. Plus it should be more comfortable, including less fees, ability to move around, ability to carry more baggage, not having to take your shoes off to board...etc. etc.

Obviously, flying would still be the best way to get from coast to coast, but there are many areas of the country that would benefit from intercity high-speed rail. The NE corridor is the best example. In California, we are planning a high-speed rail network, first leg to be constructed from San Francisco to Los Angeles/Anaheim. But the project will die without some federal funding.

I can say after spending 10 days traveling in Europe and never setting foot in a car, I really wish we had more rail options in the US! Trains are such a comfortable, convenient, civilized, and environmentally friendly way to get around.

High-speed rail design and construction would also create lots of jobs --and I assume better jobs than road construction. In a perfect scenario, our dying automakers would re-tool to build the rail cars.