Why is it that many Americans suddenly seem obsessed with building high speed rail, when most of us don’t even use the 21,400-mile passenger rail system we already have? It’s not as though regular passenger trains are incapable of going faster than the cars we choose to drive instead. Many Amtrak trains can top 100 miles per hour, given the right track conditions. And who can claim that being stuck behind the wheel in traffic is enjoyable?

According to Tom White, a veteran rail planner and author with nearly 60 years of experience in the industry, the problem is that we have forgotten how to make good use of the trains we have. Current U.S. intercity passenger rail service is often so unreliable, infrequent, and inconvenient in its scheduling, that most people who take an Amtrak train once or twice are given little reason to do it again. Top speed is just a number when you’re stuck behind a parked freight train for thirty minutes; and even overall trip times count for little when the only available trip starts or ends in the middle of the night.

It’s not that Americans will only ride bullet trains—it’s that we will only ride trains that actually meet our transportation needs. And 54 years into the Amtrak era, few of us are even aware that this is a possibility on our existing system. As Mr. White says, we need to create  “a much better picture of what could be before people are going to want it, rather than trying to convince people they want more of a bad product.”

Our Rail Bites series presents you with some of our favorite clips from our amazing guests on Reconnect America. With Rail Bites, you can look forward to more frequent, shorter-form content in between our carefully crafted longer episodes.

Reconnect America is hosted by Bill Moyer, co-author of the book Solutionary Rail: A People-powered Campaign to Electrify America’s Railroads and Open Corridors to a Clean Energy Future. Check out the essays and supplemental posts that complement this podcast HERE.

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