Europe Travelblog  -

+ 10 - 15 | § ¶Getting Up to Speed - What it will take to get High Speed Rail in America

As part of an issue on infrastructure, the New York Time Magazine has an article called Getting Up to Speed, which I found to be a really interesting discussion of where train travel is in California now, how much better trains are in Europe, and where the political process is to bridge the gap.

The fundamental case made by his rail authority is that the stupendous cost of the rail plan is still tens of billions of dollars lower than the other option — expanding the highways and airports to accommodate the state’s population growth."

Yes, it's expensive to bring high speed rail to America, but that complaint seems to ignore that this would be spending that would reduce the amount of spending necessary for highway and air travel.  I don't understand why the rails are expected to go it alone when we taxpayers subsidize road and air traffic so much instead.