Too Stupid To Survive (James Howard Kunstler)

[Tace]

The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) is perhaps the only surviving collective intelligence left in the United States that is producing ideas consistent with reality.

James Howard Kunstler -- World News Trust

June 15, 2009 -- Coming home from the annual meet-up of the New Urbanists, I was already agitated from the shenanigans of United Airlines -- two-hour delay, blown connection -- when I waded into this week's New York Times Sunday Magazine for further evidence that our ruling elites are too stupid to survive (and perhaps the US with them). Exhibit A was the magazine's lead article about California's proposed high-speed rail project by Jon Gertner.

The article began with a description of California's current rail service between the Bay Area and Los Angeles. A commission of nine-year-olds in a place like Germany could run a better system, of course. It's never on schedule. The equipment breaks down incessantly. A substantial leg of the trip requires a transfer to a bus (along with everybody's luggage) with no working toilet. You get the picture:

The proposed solution to this is the most expensive public works program in the history of the world, at a time when both the state of California and the U.S. federal government are effectively bankrupt. By the way, I wouldn't argue that California shouldn't have high-speed rail. It might have been nice if, say, in the late 20th century, some far-seeing governor had noticed what was going on in France, Germany, and Spain but, alas.... It would have been nice, too, if the doltish George W. Bush, when addressing extreme airport congestion in 2003, had considered serious upgrades in normal train service between the many U.S. cities 500 miles or so apart. The idea never entered his walnut brain.

The sad truth is it's too late now. But the additional sad truth, at this point, is that Californians (and U.S. public in general) would benefit tremendously from normal rail service on a par with the standards of 1927, when speeds of 100 miles-per-hour were common and the trains ran absolutely on time (and frequently, too) without computers (imagine that!). The tracks are still there, waiting to be fixed. In our current condition of psychotic techno-grandiosity, this is all too hopelessly quaint, not cutting edge enough, pathetically un-"hot." The fact that it is not even considered by the editors of The New York Times, not to mention the governor of California, the President of the United States, and all the agency heads and departmental chiefs and think tank gurus and university engineering professors, is something that will have historians of the future rolling their eyes. But for the moment all it shows is that we are collectively too stupid to survive as an advanced society.

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[nichomachus]

1. Bingo . . .

We don't need mag-lev bullet trains. We just need trains that work the way they're supposed to. There are some areas where the tracks are so bad, trains can't go any faster than 20 mph. That's idiocy.

One of the big problems on the west coast it that the tracks are owned by the freight companies -- and it's not unusual for passenger trains to sit on a siding for 20 minutes so a freight train can go by.

[FloridaJudy]

2. We used to have decent train service between here and Miami

Back in 1989 or so, when my MIL was dying we used it a lot. Just as quick as driving, but less stressful. But no more. Oh, the tracks are there, and the trains run on them, but they don't stop locally any more. Instead, I'd have to drive almost a hundred miles to find a station.

With the price of gas what it is now, this is insane.