RE: https://mastodon.social/@elasticsoul/116341808233832493
This, oh yes this. (Mind you, I do not know the url for the article where this interview is published, but…)
In the weeks after 9-11, with air travel grounded over most of North America, there was an amazing natural experiment. Within days weather patterns over the entire continent changed due reduced high-altitude exhaust.
#HSR is so much cheaper we can all travel more often, and further, if we want to, as quickly as air travel. #Trains & #rail are made here, not there.
Gerald Butts (former senior Liberal advisor) points out that Canadian airlines lobby hard against rail, too.
"Wow. China has around 50,000 km of high-speed rail, and they only started building it in 2008.
"On directly competitive routes, Chinese HSR has driven a 24.6% drop in flights and a 28.2% decline in air passenger volume.
"Which, unsurprisingly, is exactly why airlines in the U.S. have been lobbying against high-speed rail for ages."