I will tell you here, embedded in the comments, that this is — almost verbatim — a true story, and it represents the attitudes of many people regarding HSR – that it’s an expense to subsidize travel for people who can’t afford a car.

While many of the vested interests are the same over here some are remarkably different in a very strange way. The air corridor between Sydney and Melbourne is the fourth busiest in the world (depending on who you talk to) and yet the CEO’s of both major airlines in Australia have come out in support of the idea and have even stated publicly that they would partner it.

Our big problem is our Federal Government who only pay lip service to such a radical way of thought forever commissioning studies without actually doing anything concrete. There are two continents without high-speed rail at the moment, Antartica and Australia. I want to be part of this movement for change but serious but finding anybody of note willing to take up the challenge is like any illegitimate child looking for its father.

“Although the private roadbuilders would be repaid with toll money, that would not be enough to fund the whole project. The $300 million in public funds that Georgia is prepared to spend on this project is more than the DOT’s entire state budget for road widening in the last fiscal year…”

The project cannot pay for itself. Just can’t. This is true despite the fact that the security, equipment (and maintenance of that equipment), and liability are distributed costs. To extend a few miles of managed lanes, the State of GA is willing to spend more than one year’s annual budget.

This represents a very high threshold of pain for improvements that have to do with the car.