Political football

The US High Speed Rail Association, based in Washington, says it is the only organization in America focused on advancing a national high speed rail network. The independent, nonprofit trade association has a vision for a 17,000-mile national HSR system built in phases by 2030.

This week, USHSRA hosted a "Transit-Oriented Development and Urban Real Estate Conference" in Washington, with 45 guest speakers from industry and government.

"We have developers focused on putting 100-story office towers on top of train stations," Shelhorse, vice-president of member services, told China Daily. "You step off your train and you go up your elevator, ready to go."

Shelhorse sees political gridlock as a major obstacle to HSR in the US.

"So much bureaucracy. There's just an unwillingness to deal," he said. "The Republicans and their voting districts are all rural and suburban. And the Democrats, their centers of power are the big cities.

"You can't think you're going to get somebody to fork over billions and billions of dollars to upgrade big-city infrastructure," Shelhorse said. He said the opposition would say "we need to build some highways in the Republican districts and come up with some bipartisan compromises."

Shelhorse said he met with officials from China's Ministry of Transportation a few years ago in China.

"They took me on a fancy tour, and I saw all their factories. Stations are just unbelievable. One corner of the station connects to the interstate, one corner connects to the airport, one corner connects to the bus. The fact that you can view a dozen different types of transportation and view them all under one roof is incredible," Shelhorse said.

Andy Kunz, president of USHSR, in a September interview on inverse.com about HSR's prospects, said: "We have a lot of forces in this country that are trying to stop it. Mainly, the big industries in transportation who are making money now: big oil, big roads, aviation. Most of those industries do not really want to see a major rollout of high-speed rail all over America because they see that as a huge threat to their businesses."

A September survey by the American Public Transportation Association found that 63 percent of Americans would use high-speed rail for business or leisure if it were available. That number rises to 78 percent in the 18-24 age group.

Contact the writers at williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com and hezijiang@chinadailyusa.com