Comments by "afcgeo" (@afcgeo882) on "Bloomberg Originals" channel.

  1. As a European, you should understand that ALL of Western Europe, including the Baltics are the sake size as the United States, by area.
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  2. Arch Stanton The reason a straight line corridor cannot be built is because the area is densely populated and eminent domain in the US is not like it is in China or Japan where private property is simply taken away by the government.
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  3. Hermann Both, train and public transportation are dependent on population density and outside of the Northeastern United States, there isn’t enough of that to sustain those modes of transport. It’s the same in Australia, Canada, Brazil and other developed nations with low population density. The exceptions are Russia and China because they were Communist systems that prevented automobile travel and had no access to modern air technologies.
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  4. chunchuan lv Now it is, but now did not lead up to now. We have now because if our past. If you don’t understand that then you must be a child. China’s population is not only sense, but is also almost completely urbanized, squeezed into mega cities and empty between. That makes train travel, especially high speed train travel very smart. It also helps that most Chinese still can’t afford to fly regularly. The government, still being Communist, is required to spend on the poor, even if they don’t quite have the money yet. That’s very different from North America.
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  5. Alex Agape Where does the government subsidize the cost of gas?
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  6. Blair Greene It doesn’t really matter, because there’s not sufficient demand to support both systems and Tri-Rail is cheap enough for commuters. People will still take cars because of the lack of public transportation options at both ends and because most don’t work anywhere near the train stations.
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  7. MK KM S. Korea and Japan have densely populated cities, but they have no suburbs and their rural density is incredibly low. Once you clear the city lines, no one lives out there. That’s the opposite of the NE. Furthermore, Japanese HST lines were developed in the 1970’s, before the population boom and were ran between cities on opposite ends of islands, avoiding shore lines. That allowed for straight lines. The ocean along the US East Coast doesn’t allow that.
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  8. Kam sun Leong And just 20 years ago regular Chinese citizens were not allowed to own automobiles. Everyone used bicycles. What are you, 12? How can you not know that?
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  9. Cedric John Llorente Fuel in the US has ZERO subsidies. Its retail prices are higher than crude oil prices by quite a bit. You seem fairly intelligent, but HIGHLY uninformed. Prices in the US are lower than Canada or Europe because the taxes on it aren’t as high. That’s all it is. Because of high car usage, the aggregate tax revenue on fuel remains sufficient for maintenance of interstate and state highways without the tax rate being high. Also, urban public transport isn’t the topic here and comparing a 15 year old Singapore system to a 100 year plus one in New York actually isn’t intelligent. Try living in the civilized world before criticizing it. You’re still running tuk-tuks in the Phl as far as I know.
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  10. Katjerouac Music You’re talking about commuter trains, but this is an intercity line and that doesn’t really exist in NJ. You have one Amtrak stop for the whole state: Newark and it’s only on one line.
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  11. Leopoldo Ferrari Both, Paris and Marseille are two very large cities that are very close together: 778km. That’s nothing. Cities in North America are FAR farther away from each other, and are far smaller. You don’t see people commuting from Portugal to Estonia by train much, do you? Why not? How about Oslo to Palermo? Why not? That’s how the United States and Canada are. Furthermore, of all train systems in Europe, only one is profitable - Eurostar. The rest are a HUGE burden on the governments. They’ve even bankrupted a couple. Why? They charge very little for the cost of operation, so the governments have to run them. You end up thinking they’re cheap, but you aren’t considering all the taxes you’re paying for them even when not riding them. They’re not so cheap at all. The costs are just hidden in your taxes. Amtrak and Via Rail are that way too. Airlines aren’t though. Most airlines in Europe and North America are private and make a very nice profit.
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  12. chunchuan lv That’s what I said!
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  13. Jeff DeWitt Like South Korea, Japan built most of its infrastructure in the 1970s and 1980s. That’s unlike the Northeast U.S, which was built up in the 1800s. The first Shinkansen line (Tokaido) was opened in 1964, connecting Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka. However, the entire line is just 310 miles and runs through unpopulated mountainous terrain. It ran slower than today’s Northeast Direct trains do. Its biggest draw is being wide gauge and having very few stops. Running on a completely isolated track means it has no crossings. That allows it to run at maximum speed for long periods.
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  14. Arch Stanton 1. The average speed of the Northeast Regional is higher than the original speed of the Shinkansen. That’s a fact. The Shinkansen was able to run up to 139, but rarely reached even close to that speed. 2. What you call “standard” gauge was called “wide” gauge in Japan as all railroads there ran on narrow gauge at the time.
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  15. This is just an advertisement for this rail company. The fact is that there is already an existing, robust commuter rail system in South Florida that connects Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. It’s called Tri-Rail and it runs parallel to Brightline, makes mores useful stops including airports and costs far less than Brightline. Because of this, Brightline has been discounting their tickets to meet the investors’ estimates for ridership. In fact, regular coach tickets are sold as “buy one, get three free”. That artificially elevates ridership numbers as numbers of tickets sold far exceed actual bodies on the train, and obviously exceeds revenue collected. This line is trying to he a commuter train AND an intercity train, but it’s going to fail at both. To be a commuter train you need many stops, which cost time. You need to be inexpensive and sell weekly/monthly passes. You need yo serve commuter hubs. This train does none of those things. To be a good intercity train it needs few stops at key cities, and serve large population points without a fast and convenient connection. However, South Florida residents are already well connected by car, bus and air and Miami, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach are just too small and too spread out. There’s a reason why these metro centers are called by County and not city names. Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties are large in population, but those cities aren’t. Orlando is more of a tourist destination than somewhere Floridians go to. It also has the busiest airport in Florida (yes, busier than MIA or FLL). Tourists that go to the theme parks in Orlando and tourists who go to Miami Beach are different tourists and those two vacations are very different. Brightline is just an exercise in spending the billions of dollars the federal government made available to railroad developers under the Obama administration. They’re actually funding real estate purchases with money intended for infrastructure projects. That’s what Brightline is.
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  16. VideoAmericanStyle I have. Brightline DID receive that grant money to build the CA-NV line. In Florida, Brighline used over a billion dollars in tax-exempt bonds to pay for the 2nd phase. They’re also using public money to build stations, even though few can afford to take that train regularly with rush hour Ft Lauderdale to Miami tickets going for $30. This article explains it all. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-op-edit-brightline-trirail-virgin-trains-20191110-mljtto2knnaa5nifi2b2shdpbq-story.html?outputType=amp
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  17. LngVly22 Actually, no. Most people commute via TriRail, which is a cheap commuter train that stops everywhere, not the Brightline. The added stops on the Brightljne will actually doom this project. More stops = longer journeys. The owners need to figure out if they want to be a commuter line or an intercity line. The $11 tickets are a temporary buy 1, get 3 free promotion. The real fares are about ) $30-40 each way from West Palm to Miami and not much cheaper from Ft Lauderdale. Who pays $60/day to commute? Also, what happens once you’re in Miami? The public transit is terrible! People literally Uber from there. It defeats the whole purpose of the line.
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  18. Kam sun Leong You don’t understand English well, do you?
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