Yes, it’s being discussed. There’s no funding for it at this point and it will cost billion.
One of the most amazingly ignorant arguments for such high speed rail lines – and it’s included in the TV news story linked to above — is to claim that they must be a great idea as there are a lot of flights between say Charlotte and Atlanta. But CLT and ATL are major airline hubs and most of the people flying between the two cities are connecting at one end or the other. Last June, Delta, AirTran Tran and US Airways combined to offer 23 flights a day with some 3,000 seats between Charlotte and Atlanta. Federal data shows that only 220 passengers a day each way fly between the two cities proper — everyone else on those flights was connecting to go someplace else.
Federal data is available here — select Table 6 for the quarter of interest.
H/t: JAT
