How are you defining “massive change”? It seems to me that a bigger “change” in people’s livelihoods, energy use, automobile use, quality of life, etc., etc., would come from getting their daily trips into walking or transit, rather than long-distance trips that they do not take as often.

It seems to me that throwing literally billions at high speed rail to connect places like Dallas and Houston is going to do less than to take a hard look at Dallas and figure out ways to improve daily transit usage there. Maybe we can set up more express buses, rail, light rail, trolleys, whatever, that focus on nodes and hubs and new mixed use destinations. Maybe new growth can take place within the existing developed footprint of the DFW metro’s cities.

I think the HSR thing is a great concept, but it might not need to be our first priority, and it surely costs a lot (both in monetary terms and in terms of the energy investment needed to build it). Getting Joe Commuter out of the car ten trips a week by providing him with a transit option to his job goes a lot further toward improving his life than providing for him on his monthly trip to visit Grandma in Houston, and it probably costs a whole lot less.

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_10_2X_Cigarette_Smoking.asp

No trouble at all, smokers will still be able to exercise their right to stay home or drive their own vehicle. Heck, they may even choose their constitutionally protected right to quit!

Trouble with bringing these things only to high population areas is that they will be most expensive to construct there and distort the costs which might be realized in the plains states which could be significantly less due to the fact that they are not densely populated and they are dead flat.

Why not build one between Dallas and Houston, then Houston to San Antonio and San Antonio, Austin, Waco, Dallas. By linking all of these cities the majority of the population of Texas could be served by passenger rails, and it would be a lot cheaper than building in California or the Eastern Corridor, because there would be less need for expensive stations, special infrastructure to account for existing population, terrain like mountains or siesemic activity.

Diesel spurs could be used initially to connect smaller cities like Lubbock and Amarillo, while air planes could continue to be used to connect far western cities like El Paso.

Trouble with trains and their use is going to be accomidating smokers in the current anti-smoking PC environment. Smokers still make up 1 in 4 adults, and they will not sit still for much longer than an hour or so without wanting a puff, and this might affect their decision to ride the train or drive their own car.

The reality is that people want solutions that they are actually excited about. Ones that are better than what is currently available. High speed rail is simply better, faster and more comfortable transportation than driving or flying.

High speed rail will encourage the development of hub and spoke transportation patterns that are best serviced by light rail, subways and buses. It will encourage energy efficient dense development around stations and transit lines feeding the high speed rail system. People will want to live and work near stations. People will be able to live their lives without a car. This will enable the enactment of the other policies needed to decrease auto use such as road pricing, pay as you drive insurance, congestion pricing, growth boundaries, etc. Anyway, high speed rail is pretty much all Democrats and Republicans can agree on. That’s why it made it into the stimulus.

More at:
http://everyoneforever.org/blogger/labels/High%20Speed%20Rail.html

This is quite refreshing as there is a kind of totally misguided knee-jerk attitude that expensive massive vehicle transit is the best way to go.

The Dirt also promotes a very important idea that cities can generate energy (negawatts) and start to reverse climate change is very valid and deserves a lot of focus; and, even more advanced and exciting would the development of building and growth processes with similar net-positive effects. After all, people — and living things — usually have a net-positive effect on information. Why not energy and environmental improvement as well?

(http://dirt.asla.org/2009/05/22/moving-from-sustainable-to-positive-climate-development-in-cities/)