Given the fact that oil/gas prices are going to continue to rise and the airline corporations are in trouble?

And, airline prices are not going to fall, they will only go up. Don't you think it would be wise of all our politicians to start talking about a nationwide rail system that would include high speed rail that don't use fossil fuels such as the meglev high speed rail. Which could also provide jobs for those out of work in our manufacturing sector states such as Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the U.S?





http://science.howstuffworks.com/maglev-鈥?/a>Given the fact that oil/gas prices are going to continue to rise and the airline corporations are in trouble?
Agreed. I have been touting a rail system for years vs ever widening highways.





In Chicago our local rail systems have been utilized for decades and they remain filled to capacity.





While living in NC I thought it would be great to parallel I-40 with a rail system to interconnect Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Raleigh-Durham.Given the fact that oil/gas prices are going to continue to rise and the airline corporations are in trouble?
Yes, and it's not only the airlines. Truckers, workers , industry is already feeling the crunch. Our big shots are gonna have to stop, and take a look back. We all might have to go back to the old ways. Horse and wagon. or our foot mobile. It won't be the rich, but the common citizen who will suffer. Think about the Farmers, who are soon ready to plant crops to feed us. Will they be able to afford the gas for their tractors? Who ever is responsible for this huge Oil problem should be brought to public display.
Yes, that would be a good idea, as would relocating people from the suburbs to the city.
if you hijack the plane you won't be needing to buy a ticket





lolol





hugs!
You are right of course but I don't buy into the B.S. that there really is a shortage.You recall that prices were now going up very fast until Katerina hit.at that time they used it as an excuse,now they use grama farting as an excuse.Just anything to get their hands in our pockets.It would seam to me that the time the airplanes were grounded we should have gained a little.Each plane burns thousands of gallons a day.I'm for going back to the horse and buggy. Just a little thing my wife and I recall.When we were dateing I would pull into a gas station and get $1.00 worth of gas and still have enough money for dinner a movie and nearly enough gas for the week.Gas was from $.19to25 cents a gallon.Oh God for thjose times again.
It depends on what you mean by wise. In terms of being visionary about the future of our energy policy, yes, it might be wise. In terms of being re-elected, which is generally a goal of politicians, or of passing legislation, it would probably not be wise to do more than support some research and prototypes on very small scales. It will take a sea change in public opinion to get widespread support for high-speed rail systems. In the past, they have been proposed (not the ones that don't use fossil fuels) and haven't caught on. It's human nature to act only when there's a crisis, and most Americans probably don't fly much, or even at all - I don't know the statistics.





I really like your question, so the caveat to my answer is that I'm a bit of a pessimist, but I can remember taking a train through some of those dead manufacturing towns in the U.S. back in the 70s, and even then they didn't look like they were coming back. That was before all the union-busting in the Reagan years, before NAFTA. It's a nice idea to retrain manufacturing workers for jobs that would actually help our nation toward energy independence, but I'm skeptical about rebuilding those towns or getting those people who've lost jobs long ago back to high-paying manufacturing work, perhaps with strong unions again. It would certainly be nicer than past programs, though, that didn't provide these workers with much more than a path to much lower-paying jobs.





I just think we Americans want things instantly, and that it would take a cultural change for us to want to go coast to coast by train instead of by air. I'm not convinced oil/gas prices are going to continue to rise - I'm sure my broker thinks they've peaked because he called to say he was selling oil-related stocks last week - and I think folks might have to actually find themselves unable to get flights to where they want to go before they take the issue seriously.
How do you know any of this? Are you going to will it so so your guys can get elected?





Every election Liberals pull out a whole list of crises that only they can fix, yet they are all forgotten after the election.





And how will you generate the electricity?