網路城邦
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加州高鐡泡湯了
2019/02/14 13:09:32瀏覽377|回應0|推薦4

Not far from my place, 101 Intrastate Highway is the main artery for commuters travelling between South Bay and Silicon Valley.  People drive northbound to the valley and San Francisco to work before noon, while they drive southbound back to homes in San Jose or beyond in afternoon.  But either direction they take is always in sufforcating gridlocks during weekdays.  I always think if I have not retired from work, and I have to work in this place, my nerves might have broken down sooner or later. 

Young people just cannot bear the higher and higher housing cost at the places nearer to their work, so they have to move to rural, cheaper places and drive a long distance to work everyday. Therefore, it has been an adverse cycle that deter the bad situation from improving.  But why dont the city or the state build up public transportation systems like subways or railways to accommodate the basic needs of ordinary people?  The root cause may boil down to money, or the lack of it.  

https://www.guancha.cn/internation/2019_02_13_489968.shtml

Americans have long been relying mostly on roads and highways for their transportation.  You know, its nationwide highway sysmtems were contructed in 60s during Eisenhower era, when America is the wealthiest nation in the world.  (That was also the time when American auto industry was at its peak.  I guess those auto tycoons must have played an important role by lobbying the government to build as many highways as possible.)  But now America is not as that rich any more; no governments can afford the high cost of other advanced means, e.g. highspeed railways.  How about let private businesses do the job?  Now way, because all they are considering is the effect of cost and profit.  So the Cal highspeed plan is dead. 

China Mainland is a rich socialist nation now.  Becasuse of her ingrained notion of socialism, she will definitely not follow the same old disastrous road as America has trod.  (Basically, she will invest in whatever public facilities regardless of their capital gains.) 

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