AR-News: (US CA) Report: Trains would cost less, be better for environment

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

STEVE LAWRENCE
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO - A high-speed rail system linking California's major cities would 
be less than half as expensive and more environmentally friendly than 
building out highways and airports to meet the state's travel demands, a draft 
environmental impact report says.
The 2,000-page document, scheduled to be released Tuesday at news conferences 
in San Francisco and Los Angeles, looks at three options to deal with the 
state's transportation needs as intercity travel increases as much as 63 percent 
over the next 20 years.
Under the first scenario, the state would build only those highway and 
airport projects currently in the planning stages. Under the second, the state would 
build those projects and add an additional 2,970 miles of new highway lanes, 
nearly 60 new airport gates and five runways at a cost of nearly $82 billion 
in today's dollars.
The third option calls for a 700-mile high-speed rail system to supplement 
the currently planned highway and airport projects with trains running at top 
speeds of more than 200 mph. The trains would cost $33 billion to $37 billion in 
today's dollars and carry as many as 68 million passengers a year by 2020, 
according to the report.




full story:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/7802798.htm



"The world is a dangerous place,
not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing.",
Albert Einstein

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