Trains win last week!

Game over. No question trains are now replacing cars. Trains won big last week.

Train people are now emailing each other with a new sense of enthusiasm and optimism, almost euphoria.  Here's what happened:

1. Prop 1A passed in California.  The new high speed bullet train from LA to SF moves ahead, scheduled for service between 2015 and 2020.  This will change everything. For everybody. As California goes, so goes the nation. 

2. Vice President Biden rides a train everyday.  We now have a Vice President who has taken the train every day for 25 years.

3. Last month, Congress passed a funding bill for passenger rail that already got people excited.

4. The Bailout. Now when one mentions billions for trains it is spare change compared to the trillion dollar bailout of this fall. 

It will take decades, but America is on the right track again with trains.

Comments

[Willliam Draves]

Phil, good questions. My responses would be:
1. My view is indeed a "prediction" (coming true in all senses I would argue) rather than "espousal" or "philosophical" advocacy. The reason trains are replacing cars is fundamentally economic, which usually trumps all other concerns historically. Fundamentally, one cannot work and drive at the same time. So train passengers can be 25% more productive and their companies 25% more profitable than car drivers. And that's just a critical difference between success and failure for businesses.

2. Regarding dispersed population, you have a good point. I am in a cabin in the woods up north and we won't get a train up here for another 40 years (after I'm gone). So for a minority of the population, say 20% - - they will be driving for awhile. That's o.k. Some 50% of the US population is in just 50 cities. If/when we connect just those 50 cities with high speed train and light rail, then that's sufficient for a knowledge society. Thanks Phil for your comment.

[Phil Houseal]

I don't buy your predictions for trains taking over the world. The progressive progression for other entities (utilities, banks, food producers, retail) is from mega to individual and off-the-grid. Why do you espouse the opposite for transportation (loss of individual movement/choice in favor of mass movement) - philosophically, that is? Also you don't take into consideration the population dispersal in the largest parts of this country. You still need a car to get to the train station, and by doing that you give up freedom of movement, add time restraints, and create a need for even more roads and parking around the terminals. I think you might be heading down the wrong track on this prediction.