If you say it with enough sincerity, maybe it'll become possible

Dave Demerjian reports on President Obama's latest high-speed rail (HSR) pronouncements:

President Obama delivered on a campaign promise Thursday when he announced a plan to lay the groundwork for a high-speed rail network that would serve 10 of the nation's busiest transportation corridors.

The president, joined by Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood, argued improving the nation's rail system is an economic and environmental necessity. Our overburdened highways and air traffic control systems are stifling growth, he said, and it is time to embrace rail.

"What we need, then, is a smart transportation system equal to the needs of the 21st century," he said. "A system that reduces travel times and increases mobility, a system that reduces congestion and boosts productivity, a system that reduces destructive emissions and creates jobs.

"There's no reason we can't do this."

Well, actually . . . there are several reasons why you can't do this:

[. . .] what's often missing from reports like this (contrasting HSR in other countries with regular rail service in the US or Canada) is that all HSR solutions require separate, reserved rights-of-way that never see non-high speed traffic (that is, no freight trains). The cost of developing and building the locomotives, coaches, signals, and control infrastructure pale in comparison to buying the land anywhere in North America on which to build the new railway. Passenger rail service, to approach sustainability — let's ignore the whole notion of profitability — has to be located in densely populated corridors . . . exactly where the costs of acquiring land are going to be highest.

Yeah, I know, it's bad form to quote yourself . . . but even eight billion dollars won't buy you anywhere near enough for one of these proposed systems, never mind ten of them.

Update, 17 April: Nick Gillespie isn't a fan of HSR:

And now this morning, Obama was on the tube again, yapping about traffic jams. What the hell is going on here? The president of the freaking United States is talking about traffic jams? Then again, in grammar school we did all learn that part of George Washinton's Farewell Address where he warned against entangling alliances and the dread menace of highway jughandles and traffic circles. That Obama's big solution is, ta-da!, "high-speed rail" is simply one more sign that he is simply not serious about anything other than paying off 19th and 20th century legacy special interests. I look forward to tomorrow's press conference, when Obama trains his laser-beam brain on the question of whether Razzles is a candy or a gum. [. . .]

If you're the president of the United States and you're talking about goddamn traffic jams and you're proposing high-speed rail as anything other than an unapologetic boondoggle that will a) never get built and b) never get built to the gee-whiz specs it's supposed and c) be ridden by fewer people than commuted by zeppelin last year, you've got real problems, bub. And by extension, so do we all.