Over the past few years, in what could almost be considered a crash program, the Spanish have tied together almost all of their major cities into AVE*, Spain’s high-speed rail system. So how’s it all working out? Well, according to the National Statistics Institute, the month of January saw a new transportation milestone: 1.9 million…
I came across the following quotation from Mark Twain the other day: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” Following those words of wisdom, I cannot resist pointing out that only…
I’ve frequently written about the many countries around the world that have put a high priority on building high-speed rail. Over the past decade, for instance, the Spanish have linked most of their major cities with their AVE trains. And of course the French TGV system has been the gold standard for years. But when…
The knee-jerk anti-anything-government ideologues in this country continue to insist that money spent on passenger rail is wasted. They’re full of crap. (Yes, I’m cranky. I’ve pretty much lost patience with people who are so locked into their own view of the world that they refuse to accept as fact the proven experience of other…