The French? What Can They Possibly Teach Us?

It’s quite amazing how many people oppose high-speed rail for the carefully-thought-out opinion that “it’s just another big gummint boondoggle!” There’s a brief pause, then comes the clincher: “And nobody’s gonna ride the damn thing anyway!”
Oh, really?

Well, for just a moment let’s consider a milestone just achieved by the French National Railways (SNCF), which inaugurated its first high-speed line in 1981. The other day, the two billionth passenger was carried aboard one of their high speed trains. That’s two thousand million people on their TGVs … their train à grande vitesse … which literally translates as “high speed train”.
Clearly, the French public has bought into high-speed rail. SNCF carries 127 million people a year on high-speed trains (not to mention millions more on their conventional equipment). Some 83 percent of the French population has traveled at least once on one of the sleek TGVs which routinely operate at close to 200 miles per hour, some even faster.
Yet despite all of that, a significant number of Americans buy into the ignorant rants of the anti-rail crowd.  Worse, so do a shocking number of elected members of state legislatures and the U.S. Congress.
And that’s why it’s so important that the California high-speed rail line is built and begins operation as soon as possible. Because once it’s up and running, people will ride it … and they will love it! That will start the rush to build high-speed rail in other parts of the country. And those people will love it! Before you know it, Americans will be zooming here and there comfortably and happily on our own high-speed rail network. 
But first, California has to build theirs.