Pros And Cons Of California's High Speed Railway System

Improved Essays
Will a High Speed Railway System Be Good for California’s Economy? Imagine living in San Francisco yet working in Los Angeles. It is hard to imagine due to the limited transportation options like airfare or driving. Picture a family from Germany flying in to LAX, and they would want to see the Golden Gate Bridge in Northern California. Now consider the fact that it is possible doing that approximately in just two hours and thirty minutes. California has a great opportunity to develop this highly eco-friendly transportation system to connect the two halves of the state, Northern California and Southern California. Many are opposed to the development strictly because of the cost of this project; however, building a high speed railway system …show more content…
The Japanese people wanted a way to travel from one part of the country to the other without using an airplane ticket as means for transportation. This idea has summoned the bullet train. “High speed train is an elegant solution for shuttling workers from one dense city to another” (Pinsker). This goes to show that if California would establish this high speed railway, more people could work in Los Angeles while living in San Francisco or vice versa. This creates more job opportunities throughout the state. Many people lose careers or jobs simply because the employer or company had to relocate the workers to a different area away from home. This helps keep families tightly knit while being away. Not only is it beneficial for the employee to keep his job, but it also help improve companies in creating new relationships with other businesses or firms. Pinsker continues to write about how, “bullet train’s key benefits to companies is the ability to unite firms and suppliers.” Think about that quote. That is speaking greater profit margins for small businesses or large ones as well. California can now help bring …show more content…
High speed railway riders save 149 grams per passenger mile” said by California railway authorities. This alone helps the economy from a climate stand point. They begin to also write about how “high speed rail can run on 100% renewable energy.” This helps California’s economy from saving the emissions produced in the air by air planes going up and down the coast of the state (remember there is approximately 3 million flights yearly). Using renewable energy is also a huge plus on the economical point of view. This illustrates that the state is thinking greener, more on helping the environment rather than destroying the communities around us. “By 2030, high speed rail will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 700,000 metric tons, helping to achieve California’s progressive climate target” quoted from the California railway authorities. There is the numbers and actual fact on how this development will help improve overall quality of air and goals the state has set for

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Clearly a transformation like this would mean that the economy surely benefited tremendously. The building of the railroad dropped the general cost of shipping domestically as well as nationally. In the 1860’s to ship by wagon it cost 5 times more than it would by rail. With the price difference, and the fact with shipping by wagon it would remarkably take much longer, shipping by rail became the most efficient solution.…

    • 448 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Although the railroads construction created many positives for the development of the United States it also created a lot of negative effects. Due to the railroads construction, many owners of the company wanted to use immigrants as cheap labor and because of this many died while working extensive hours for little to no pay (doc.4). For many years this went on without any fight but as labor unions and…

    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Transcontinental Railroad The Transcontinental Railroad was a legendary Civil Engineering feat that created an entirely new way of settlement and trade in the West that had hardly been imagined. The Railroad changed the life of the travelers and settlers in America. A trip from the East Coast to the West Coast that used to take six months then took a mere seven days. Without the intelligence of great men like Theodore Judah and Grenville Dodge, who were Chief Engineers of the Railroad, the thousands of American and Chinese workers, and generous land grants from The Government, a feat as grand as the Transcontinental Railroad could never have been accomplished.…

    • 2075 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    The railway trains, engines, employees, managers were engaged in business of provision of services for passengers and freight. By these terms of service provision the railroad significantly contributed to the American economic growth. The amount of freight increased from 13 billions in 1870 to 450 billions in 1929. Additionally, the railroad reduced transportation costs. When the railroads began their operation the advantages over canals and other ways of transportation were obvious – the speed was much higher and the service was more flexible.…

    • 1473 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The needs of the railroad generated hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Rails had to be manufactured out of steel, which enriched the steel industry. Railroad companies not only employed workmen to build the rails, but they also had to hire employees to maintain the rails. Engines and train cars were constructed out of steel in factories. Engine boilers burned coat, thus lead to an increase the quantity of coal that was mined.…

    • 1362 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Citizens all over the US were able to reach one another more quickly, which aided more productive transmission (Seely 1). As railroads took the lead in transportation, this opened up a lot of work and jobs in this…

    • 1411 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    People thought it couldn't happen but they were wrong. The Railroad knitted America to what it is today and it couldn’t have been better. So it even has a golden spike put down by the representatives of both companies. They are very important people and the railroad is just as important. The Transcontinental Railroad was the internet of the 19th century.…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Brilliant Essays

    Trains traveling coast to coast hauled goods to factories and raced them back as finished goods for sale across the country. The industry expanded tremendously because of this huge market. Businesses were no longer required to sell their products in a certain area. The trains also carried food to enormous groups of people. The transcontinental railroad basically tied together the East and West’s economies.…

    • 1304 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Brilliant Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Industrial Revolution Dbq

    • 1407 Words
    • 6 Pages

    And the railroads collapsed because they were overextended” (29). As I stated earlier the railroad system was important to America because it allowed raw materials to be shipped throughout various places in America. Since most of the newer railroad construction was in the West it was not very profitable because there were not very many people residing in the…

    • 1407 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dallas was late to build a municipal rail transport system, yet today its DART light rail system is the largest in the United States at a total system length of 85 miles. Troubled by a rocky start, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit authority was faced with the stubborn reluctance of voters to spend any taxpayer money on public transportation infrastructure. However, once the wheels of development started in motion, there was no chance of them stopping. Over the course of 30 years, Dallas went from having the bare minimum of public transportation to having a world-renowned commuter rail system that spans even beyond the boundaries of the city. The economic and spatial impact of the DART rail system is reminiscent of the electric streetcars — save…

    • 887 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    President Abraham Lincoln once said, “A railroad to the Pacific Ocean is imperatively demanded in the interests of the whole country,” (Sandler 13). Change is a necessity of life, but positive change is rare. One of these rare instances was the event that connected the coasts of the United States. The Transcontinental Railroad not only connected America, but changed America. This massive railway revolutionized America by making American life faster paced than ever before.…

    • 2067 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The railroad was so effective at delivering resources that in the first 10 years of its creation, trains had shipped $50 million worth of goods from coast to coast (Perritano 41). Because of how quickly and efficiently train the railroad successfully expanded the markets by allowing for the faster and more efficient transportation of goods across the nation (Thought…

    • 1054 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Railroads in the 20th century were well entrenched as the primary mode of transportation that it seemed rails poked into every small community and area of the country, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast. Railroading in the 1890’s, you would see east-west and north-south main lines in operation lines no less than five routes connecting the west coast with Midwest and Deep South. Revenues by this time had topped one billion dollars with three quarters of a million workers employed in the industry. By the 20th century signaled the railroad industry's zenith in terms of size and reach as traffic and rails were slowly lost following 1920 which accelerated with the coming of the depression. while the railroad industry would see its record mileage in 1916 of 254,037 after that year mileage slowly declined and wouldn’t stop through the end of the century.…

    • 1522 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Sydnie Holder 3.9.16 Mr. Modica Early American History Impacts of the Transcontinental Railroad Since the dawn of time man has strived to be on the move, exploring the unknown and seeking news ways of getting from one point to another. The innovation of transportation gave people the gift of exploration and traveling to places they have never been able to go before. During the early 1800s the main modes of travel were wagons, horses or on-foot, causing travel to be difficult and sluggish. This drove people to discover a more efficient way of travel, which resulted in the creation of trains. Due to this invention people were able to travel farther and at faster paces.…

    • 1783 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Also, if the energy is produced in coal power plants, electric cars would reduce as much as 22% compared to gasoline powered cars. An EU study shows that it will reduce 33% or more by 2020. Due to the development of alternative energy, fossil fuel energy will decrease by the years. Another reason electric cars are better for the environment is because it could reduce number of deaths from air-pollution. As a matter of fact, the National Academies of Sciences have discovered that the death ratio can be reduced by 70%, if we use renewable energy.…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays