• Neato@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Hyperloop was invented to try to kill light rail. It succeeded at killing Maryland’s new venture and Illinois’. Neither were built because Hyperloop promised bullshit. Elon hates public transport.

  • Nobody@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The mistake is thinking Elon is a moron screwing everything up on accident. He isn’t. He’s an Afrikaner white supremacist Nazi who is causing all this damage on purpose.

    Starlink and SpaceX should be nationalized before he gets a chance to weaponize those companies against the western world as well.

        • Alteon@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          People also like to get places fast. High speed rail does that. Why drive 3-6 hours myself when I can relax and read a book and something for a fraction of that on a train and dodge the headache that is air travel?

  • redfellow@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Ya all looking at this like it’s a conspiracy. It’s just a guy looking to sell more cars. Shame on anyone who thought it’s a real thing.

  • Throwaway@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Its a lot easier when you have slave labor and don’t care about the enviroment or human lives

  • nucleative@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Giant infrastructure projects are a weakness of democracies. It’s tough to get everyone to agree and pay for huge projects that take long term vision and planning.

    Or you could call it a strength because it’s stable and can’t be changed too fast by one guy with a short term bad idea.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      Mainly in the US, though. The automobile lobby successfully undermined many attempts at mass transit infrastructure. And the existing rail network is privatized into oblivion.

      Roosevelt showed that there is a way of tackling infrastructure in the US. Only his approach has a minute slither of what can be framed to be socialist, so it’ll never happen again…

    • BOMBS@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      see NEOM

      It’s an unbelievably stupid idea that’s really going to happen. The prince of Saudi Arabia knows that their oil economy is going to wither away soon, so he’s trying to make SA appealing to people with money and have them move there. How? By building a city that’s a line 160 km (110 mi) long and 200 m (660 ft) wide…in the middle of fucking nowhere. The whole idea is based on technology that we don’t have and is just terrible city planning. Look into it to get a laugh.

        • Comment105@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          No, you don’t get it.

          It’s blessed by god so it’ll be good no matter what. God is good to his faithful. Lamborghini Akbar.

  • uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    This is misleadingly reductionist. California high speed rail has made consistant progess in that time. That progress has been slower than ourslowest expectations. It demonstrates the void of expertise the US has in rail megaprojects. However, that expertise is being built, slowly and painfully. Its still forward progress for a nation which tore up half its rail overthe last 50 years.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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      1 year ago

      America invented rail megaprojects.

      America still has the largest rail network by far. It’s well more than twice the size of China’s.

      The only interesting note is that it’s almost all freight compared to other nations’ use of passenger rail.

  • COASTER1921@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    It’s much easier to build rail in places that weren’t designed around cars. Even in rural China people live in condos and apartments with parks between. This helps with NIMBYism and combined with the already large amount of green space left in Chinese cities such systems can be built with the only real concern being the engineering itself. But China is also in a good position for that, as their workforce is incredibly well educated with more engineering talent than they can even fully employ domestically. All that PLUS the political will of a single party state meant it was a very different situation than California.

    And that’s before you even consider ridership, where even the best possible SF to LA route would still pretty much require you to get a car or taxi once you get to LA (because LA was basically torn down and redesigned for cars).

  • balderdash@lemmy.zip
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    1 year ago

    China wants unity, even in places where it doesn’t make economic sense.

    edit: 100% downvotes are coming from people that don’t know the situation. The CCP wants fast travel to major population centers even when the rail line isn’t profitable.

    • zephyreks@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      It makes economic sense but not financial sense. Railways are almost always profitable once considering second and third order effects.

      It’s the same story with Amtrak, so I’m not sure why people are so confused. Amtrak loses money on every train that’s not the NEC.

    • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Isn’t that a good thing? sounds like the rail is being run as a public utility rather than a business. And its still likely profitable if you average the cost over all the lines.

      • balderdash@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        I never said it was a good/bad thing. I’m saying the Chinese gov. isn’t as concerned with profit. Which explains the difference between California and China

  • Peaty@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    China has the advantage of not having to care about the citizens’ desires in regards to be relocated to make the rail possible.

    • xenoclast@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I don’t think America gives any shits either. They let the world’s most useless CEO dictate their future

    • zephyreks@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Kelo v. City of New London. That’s all you need to know about the US’ “care” for citizens’ desires as far as eminent domain is concerned.

      • Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        The US still has things like reelection to consider with these things. China doesnt. And if someone speaks up against the government they just get arrested

    • Peddlephile@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      They also provide apartments to live in permanently for those displaced in the development.

      Meanwhile, the US has not built high speed rail and has tent cities.

      In the case of national infrastructure, China wins hands down.

      Although it’s kind of ridiculous to compare California with an entire country…

      • sweeny@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Honestly not that ridiculous of a comparison considering California’s size and GDP, we could be doing a lot better