No train would be a sad outcome. But a lot of the current blowback could have been prevented if it hadn’t had to have been HIGH SPEED RAIL YEAH!! Building tracks that can handle speeds in excess of roughly 120mph incurs cost penalties that are hugely disproportionate to the benefits the faster possible running speeds…

Wouldn’t even have to be that densely populated. Something like Vancouver-Portland-Bay Area is just as feasible, if we can accept that 150mph, or even 180, is unnecessary. Reliable 80-90mph averages would beat driving any day, without incurring the massive cost penalties that come with top speeds above roughly 120mph.

I’m all for better trains, and single-purpose right-of-way is an indispensable prerequisite for that. But does it have to be high-speed? If saving money is the big idea, a lot of money could be saved by planning (and then actually building) for 100mph with a reliable 80mph average, and I’d be hella happy with getting…

Baby steps. I’d be more than happy to see reliable medium-distance, higher-speed corridors connecting towns within more-densely populated areas within my lifetime (hypothetical coastal corridors being prime examples of that).

Why does it have to be a bullet train though? A plain old long distance train of the sort that many of the less wealthy European countries operate would be much more attainable and already a huge improvement over driving. Something like Caltrain, but more comfortable and spacious, with rolling stock and right-of-way…

I really like the idea of a solid rail network in the US, but why does it have to be high speed? For short-to-medium distance connections, which make the most sense in the US, because really, who’s gonna take the train from Chicago to Miami, medium-speed trains will do just fine, and cost a whole lost less. Thus…

Kotaku certainly is liberal-leaning, no doubt about it (fine with me btw, it’s called market segmentation). But can we all refrain from equating “conservative/not a liberal” with “religious”?

Yeah, but the comment section is personal opinions. So why leave out your political opinion when it’s pertinent? I don’t really get this idea that Jalopnik should be some hallowed hall of pure automotive discourse where everything not strictly car-related is regarded as uncouth.

I don’t really think in “good” or “evil” - it’s just that some country somewhere always wants something, has something to bitch at the US for, and it just annoys me.

It’s crazy to me: the US military has the power to literally destroy the world - there is no country in the world we couldn’t turn into a sea of glass with minimal casualties of our own. Why don’t we use some of that power? Why mess around with individual drone strikes if we can kill millions at the push of a button.…

All ‘70 AMXs had the Ram Air hood but without the Go-Pack, or the standalone raim air option, the scoops were blocked off.

Well, technically you can’t see the Go-Pack as it was all under the metal, one of the few “complete” performance packages available on a domestic car back then - you got either the bigger engine or the biggest, along with power disc brakes, uprated suspension, heavy-duty cooling, bigger tires, functional Ram-Air,…

The AMX wasn’t really a serious performance car out of the box, but some Corvettes aside, what American car of the era was? Competitors might have offered hotter engines, which few people ever ordered because they were a pain to live with day to day. An AMX would still dispatch most cars of its era while being docile…

Hill just isn’t as much a fan-centric artist as we’ve become used to with today’s big music stars. I think she definitely wants a connection with her fans, but in the end her art exists mostly for its own sake, on its own pace.

ISO actually managed to screw up the Italian style, American reliability recipe with the Can Am version. The regular Grifo worked as envisioned with its 327, later 350 small block. A supercar that went head to head with Italy’s finest without needing expensive maintenance every few hundred miles.

Problem is, what do parents who live in small apartments do? I grew up in a two-bedroom apartment with my mom and two older brothers, with doors that might as well have been made from cardboard.

I still like to think there’s some solution to be found that’s more in line with my personally held ideal of the USA as a bit if a global beacon, and a welcoming place for all who really want to make it here.

Ok, so what you're saying is ISIS is entirely misrepresented in the western media? Basically, the whole religious angle is just islamophobic nonsense, and what they're really attempting is to create a new state across colonial borders, to unite a people separated by European colonization?

Ok, you seem to be much more knowledgeable on the subject matter than I. But leaving the Nazi comparison aside, it does seem like ISIS is currently mostly spinning its wheels right?

ISIS certainly hasn't committed atrocities on the scale of the holocaust, not even close.