High speed rail is one of the ideas that President Obama is pushing along with solar roof tiles as a replacement for hope and change.  But high speed rail makes no economic sense for most of America or to most Americans.  The densities are to low, the costs both fixed and variable are to high and they don’t solve the problem of still needing a car when you get to wherever you are going.  We love cars and the freedom they provide us.  So why don’t we build high speed, high efficiency roads.

The constituency for High Speed Rail has been an alliance of construction companies and construction trade unions coupled with environmentalists.  High Speed Roads is an idea that can be sold to Americans and will still benefit the construction lobby.  They will be expensive to build, will give us new and better technology than the rest of the world and people will spend real money to use them.  A high speed road from LA to Las Vegas would make it possible to drive to Vegas in two and a half hours instead of four hours.  Want to be an environmentalist take the high speed low emissions bus.

What about safety?  Sensors in the cars, approved car models and strictly enforced minimum speeds could make them safe.  The Autobahn in Germany is quite safe. Minimum speed 80, Maximum speed none.  To be efficient the roads would need to be almost flat and straight with super high tech surfaces.  Maybe with convoy technology to cut drag and wire guidance.

Other possible routes could be LA to San Francisco and Chicago to Cleveland