The meme, and high-speed rail more generally, are popular topics with the group’s more than 200,000 users, its three administrators say, because it allows them to dream big. The popularity of the high-speed rail map meme builds on years of similar conversation, some of it in the Facebook group New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens (Numtot), first created in 2017 and now serving as a “haven for people who love trains,” as administrator Emily Orenstein described it. But they represent a culmination of trends that have been building in younger Americans: less interest in cars as status symbols, more interest in environmentally friendly transit methods. Gen Z isn’t the first group of young, online voters to care about transit. Gen Z loves high-speed rail, but no one’s really fighting for it The map, then, represents Gen Z’s ambitious, sincere wish - for a more connected, more sustainable future - and their inherent recognition of how impossible the dream of high-speed rail may be. Perhaps most importantly, it would require a level of federal commitment - both budgetary and planning-wise - the likes of which have not been seen in generations. To get there, the US would have to overcome a number of obstacles, from Republican and corporate opposition to a dearth of expertise. Amtrak’s Acela Express, which runs through the Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington, DC, can reach speeds of 165 miles per hour, but frequently runs at an average of 70 miles per hour between those cities.Įven with America’s resident Amtrak champion, Joe Biden, now in the White House, and the administration preparing a $2 trillion green infrastructure proposal, a network like the one in Twu’s map is at best decades away. In the United States, there is currently one high-speed rail line - arguably. High-speed rail infrastructure exists across Europe and Asia, where publicly owned and maintained tracks can connect passengers from Beijing to Hong Kong in nine hours, or Madrid to Barcelona in under three hours. You ever just think about the high speed rail system :,) /FrRtWBvXIn- Sunrise Movement July 19, 2020
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