high-speed rail
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Europe’s ‘solar tunnel’ is a high-speed rail line with solar panel topping
Europe’s new rail innovation is the solar equivalent of a Good Morning Burger. We take two miles of Belgian high speed rail tunnel, soak it in rich creamery butter, and then we cover it with a shelter to protect it from nearby old-growth trees, eliminating the need to cut them down. Then we top it off […]
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Rejecting high-speed rail is not a good political move
Hey, it turns out people don't want to get divorced and die because of long car commutes! Actually, we're just guessing about that (makes sense, though, right?), but what's clear is that constituents won't thank you for nixing rail projects. Gas 2.0 checked in with the biggest rail refusenik governors, and they're all faltering in […]
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Watch an entire country lose its sh*t for a bullet train
This surprisingly emotionally affecting video was shot in Japan right before the recent tsunami. It's a commercial for a new bullet train line, which completed a network running nearly the full length of the country, connecting all of Japan in a way that people clearly found deeply meaningful. The tsunami hit the day before the line […]
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The art of campaigning for high-speed rail
What if we recruited artists and designers to help sell the American public on the idea of high-speed rail?Illustration: Chris MurphyEarlier this week, the federal Department of Transportation announced $2 billion in new awards for 22 intercity rail projects that will improve the speed, aesthetics, and range of our existing rail system, while also studying […]
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Rail gets a $2 billion shot in the arm from Rick Scott’s rejected funds
Remember when Florida's governor turned up his nose at $2 billion in federal funds for rail projects? Now his loss is everyone else's gain. The Department of Transportation today announced the redistribution of Florida's rejected wealth today, and it looks like Scott's tantrum will mean improved speed and performance in the Northeast Corridor, a high-speed […]
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China may have bankrupted itself building high-speed rail
We're all about high-speed rail, but not if it's going to bankrupt the world's second largest economy. Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University and a longtime critic of high-speed rail, said he worries that the cost of [the country's high speed rail] project might have created a hidden debt bomb that threatens China’s […]
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Breaking: George Will takes the train, may have been collectivized
Its power is spreading.Photo: travisA few weeks back, as we wrote here, Newsweek columnist George Will wrote a screed against rail travel in which he made a startling suggestion about the true motivation behind the Obama administration’s support for rail transportation: [T]he real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ […]
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Wisconsin Gov. Walker rejected high speed rail but wants the money anyway
Before he was the guy who tried to kill Wisconsin unions, Scott Walker was the guy who campaigned on a promise to kill high-speed rail in Wisconsin. There wasn’t a lot of room for interpretation or anything — I mean, one of his campaign websites was NoTrain.com, for chrissakes. But now Walker is asking for […]
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Bob Herbert’s savvy advocacy for better infrastructure will be missed
Bob Herbert.Photo: Damon Winter/The New York TimesCross-posted from New Deal 2.0. Dear Mr. Herbert, I was sad to hear that you will no longer be writing for the op-ed page of the New York Times. Your critical perspective on the class war being waged against the middle and working class and the poor, on the waste […]