However, many of those visiting or moving to Florida also love trains and have expressed a desire to see high-speed rail service extended into this fascinating region. They point with frustration and embarrassment to successes in countries around the globe - particularly China, which has built more than 20,000 miles of high-speed rail in about two decades.The population of Florida has grown by almost 20% in recent years and is expected to grow even more over the next decade. Jerry Brown describe high-speed rail as by far the best climate-friendly transportation option. In states such as Texas and Florida, private businesses have attempted to capitalize on the need for faster, greener rail systems in the United States.īut nothing approaches the magnitude of the California plan. The rail authority recently put that number at close to $200 billion, not including the escalating costs of dealing with climate change, like fighting wildfires. Still, proponents say that the idea of scraping together as much as $105 billion should be stacked against the costs of expanding highways and air service an equivalent amount. He said that if California’s project also competes for funding from smaller pots of money in the law, like one designated for rail safety, California could get $4 billion or $5 billion - “maybe.” Davis estimated that of a $36 billion “mother lode” of money in the infrastructure law for states with intercity passenger rail, more than half will go to the Northeast, leaving what’s left to be divvied up among projects in other states. “Failure’s not an option here.”īent Flyvbjerg, a professor at Oxford University and the IT University of Copenhagen who has studied high-speed rail projects around the world, said that such projects nearly always cost much more and take much longer to build than initially projected. “We are the fifth largest economy in the world, and therefore I think we have to figure out how to do it,” said Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who as governor championed the 2008 bond measure. If completed, they say, the system would be an economic supercharger connecting two of the nation’s biggest population centers and a desperately needed alternative to choked freeways and jammed airports as climate change becomes an ever urgent challenge. Proponents say the project has always been much more than a train. “The cost of indecision on these projects is enormous,” said Eric Eidlin, a scholar with the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University who has consulted on station planning efforts for the California High-Speed Rail Authority. Now, they are believed to number more than 175,000. A Remarkable Recovery: Northern elephant seals, which are native to the waters off the West Coast, were hunted nearly to extinction.A Rare Phenomenon: An inlet on Lake Tahoe has frozen over for what appears to be the first time in three decades, leaving some locals in awe.Plane Spotting: Plane spotters are everywhere in the world, but dramatically so in Los Angeles, where one is primed to view the everyday cinematically.Schools Strike: Tens of thousands of Los Angeles school employees began a three-day strike on March 21, forcing hundreds of campuses to close.
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