Archive for August 22nd, 2012

The United States leads the world in many areas. When it comes to building environmentally friendly, sustainable high-speed rail transport, though, it does not. While other parts of the world have been running high-speed rail networks for decades — Great Britain recently announced plans to spend nearly $20 billion on upgrading its systems — the lack of political will and forward-thinking and traditional resistance to change in Americans’ transportation habits have hindered U.S. high-speed rail development.

But progress is being made, and some camps are working toward making high-speed rail a reality in America within the next decade. In recent years, interest in high-speed rail has been revived due to the cost and environmental impact of air travel and green-era push on being less reliant on petroleum-fueled transportation. California is one of the major hubs of that progress. Read the rest of this entry »