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Originally Posted by Crawford
To all the folks criticizing the Florida governor, do you honestly believe that a suburban Orlando to suburban Tampa line makes any intuitive sense?
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The line would have stations in urban Tampa as well as the suburban areas. It would also connect tourists directly to the Disney resorts and the I-Drive area. These tourists come from all over the US, and if they ride the train, they will (presumably) come away impressed. When they go home, they might look more favorably on rail lines in their area.
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Why not spend the money where there's actually demand, like along the Northeast Corridor, or perhaps in CA?
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What the hell can $3 billion do for the Northeast Corridor? Straighten a few curves in Connecticut? Shave 3 minutes off of each Acela run? If you want to see any
real improvement to travel times in the NEC - which already has 150mph service - it will require a much, much higher level of investment from the Feds. Until then, I think Federal rail money should be spent elsewhere (except for obvious bottlenecks like the Portal Bridge/North River Tunnels).
Moreover, I don't think incremental improvements to the Northeast Corridor or a few more miles of greenfield HSR track in CA's Central Valley will be enough to sell most Americans on the value of high-speed rail.
Florida's a much better example, because it has everything going for it. It's short, connects two rapidly-growing cities, and the corridor already exists, with no real engineering challenges. You can't ask for an easier place to build a high-speed rail line cheaply.