The Southern express: A vision to connect the Southern Region by high speed rail

[Terry the Fat Shark]

Good Evening my fellow Southerners, there has been a lot of talk about infrastructure in this campaign, and I have a new proposal that I hope you will all enjoy, high speed rail.

Presenting The Southern Express, a high speed rail system that would connect all of the major cities of the south together and allow the economy of the south to move at "high speed" again:



Note: circles indicate key cities/stops, more stops would be in place along the way

The preceding map is just a proposed map, it would begin in El Paso and end in Nyman, the nation's capital ( or near Nyman if a deal cannot be reached with the federal government). The Government would help to facilitate this plan with the help of investors and would divert about 5% of the federal government's funding to initiate this plan. Fares would be lower than Amtrak, a presently existing rail system, in general. This will be a major project that helps to reduce our environmental footprint ( imagine if everyone rode high speed rail instead of going car by car between the major cities) and will help reduce the travel time between cities. So let's  get the South's economy moving again at high speed!

[Wisconsin+17]

Will happily vote against this wasteful boondoggle.

[Wisconsin+17]

One, there's nowhere in the South where this is feasible over current population densities. The most heavily populated area is the Texas Triangle - to which this proposal doesn't actually cover, and instead runs a line out to West Texas.

Now I don't know about you -but I'm from West Texas. Nobody lives out there.

Florida having a line that doesn't stop in Jacksonville but runs through Jacksonville. A stop in West Virginia, but not in North Carolina, despite North Carolina being one of the more urbanized souther states.

A line from Atlanta up to Tennessee along Chickamauga? Has DFW ever been to that area? There's hills.

A line from Atlanta to Charleston? I don't believe there's even an interstate.

In short, this proposal is deeply flawed.

 

[Terry the Fat Shark]

Notice that is is a very rough draft which will require a lot of tweaking, if you still have a problem when it hits the Chamber then we can discuss it

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

As a strong supporter of public transit, I'm very interested to see where you go with this - provided the Chamber of Delegates is reasonable enough to at least read the first draft all the way through before panning it as "wasteful government SOCIALISM!"

[NeverAgain]

I have a couple of cost things for this, and especially on how much federal cost versus regional cost. I would really enjoy seeing your proposal when it comes to the Chamber.

[Wisconsin+17]

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Sure. I just don't see the densities being sufficient to warrant high speed rail. The BO-WASH corridor is a different matter.

Maybe in another 30 years, but even then it's unlikely.

[Leinad]

This is a heavily flawed map and I'm deeply concerned about funding this, but it's a good idea in theory and I think I'll have a lot of fun reworking it.

[Blair]

This is why no-one does high speed rail in the US