Which comes first: a great transit system or a great city that can support it? What role does high-speed rail play in an overall, effective transportation system? And is an incremental approach really possible with high-speed transit?
These are important questions with potentially complex answers. For insight we turned to Rick Harnish. He’s executive director of the High Speed Rail Alliance, the nation’s largest high-speed rail advocacy organization. The organization’s goal is to make high-speed trains “fast, frequent, and affordable.” Harnish cofounded the Alliance in 1993 (he’s also a Strong Towns member), and we’re pleased to welcome him as our guest this week on the Strong Towns Podcast.
In this episode, Harnish and Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn talk about how much of the transit that gets built is based on what places need versus what they can get funding for. They discuss the problem of thinking about transit as a “charitable overlay” to an auto-oriented system, and whether we can afford to fund high-speed transit while also funding new car infrastructure. They also talk about what the U.S and Canada should—and shouldn’t—learn about high-speed rail from countries like France, Japan, and China.
Additional Show NotesHigh Speed Rail Alliance
High Speed Rail Alliance (Twitter)
Charles Marohn (Twitter)
Confessions of an Engineer
Check out more Strong Towns content on public transit in the Action Lab
Chuck Marohn Answers Your Questions
Bad Benches (and Other Park Problems)
Fighting an Urban Highway Expansion in Shreveport
Johnny Sanphillippo: The Trajectory of Suburbia
Pete Davis: The Case for Commitment in an Age of “Infinite Browsing”
Here's How Cities Undermine Their Own Competitiveness
Expertise Is Not Absolute
Jason Slaughter: The Goal Isn't to Build a Cycling City
Listen to the Briefing About the Strong Towns Lawsuit
Strong Towns Has Filed a Lawsuit Against the Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure in Federal District Court
Ann Sussman and Justin Hollander: Architecture and the Unconscious Mind
Alex Alsup: Keeping People in Their Homes in Detroit
Dr. Samuel Hughes: A Proposal for Strong Suburbs
Michael Odiari: Putting a Check on Deadly Traffic Stops
Strongest Town Webcast: Lockport, IL vs. Oxford, MS (Audio Version)
Eric Jacobsen: How Car Culture is Making Us Lonelier
Beth Osborne: America's Roads are "Dangerous by Design"
Grace Olmstead: The Legacy—and the Future—of the Places We Leave Behind
Cullum Clark: Creating Cities of Opportunity
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