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    新幹線
    I'm apparently getting slack, because I didn't look out for this aspect of the Aso-Obama meeting, which had been toyed with a bit beforehand:

    It turns out that North Korea and the global financial crisis were not the only topics on Prime Minister Taro Aso's mind during summit talks Tuesday in Washington with President Barack Obama.

    He also tried to sell the U.S. leader on Shinkansen technology; Obama's reaction to the pitch was also keenly awaited back in Japan.

    ...

    Aso's pitch to Obama likely came after lobbying by Japanese railway companies eager to join in a plan being pushed by California for the United States' first high-speed rail system. It is estimated to cost 3 trillion yen to construct the system, with plans calling for partial operations starting in 2020.

    Yoshiyuki Kasai, chairman of Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai), attended an international conference on the environment in Los Angeles in January.

    He played up the advantages of the Shinkansen, saying "among high-speed trains, Japan's bullet trains emit a small volume of carbon dioxide and the trains also cause comparatively little noise and vibration."

    The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is setting up a group to promote bullet train exports that will include members from trading companies and JR Tokai and East Japan Railway Co. (JR East).

    A specialist from the ministry's Railway Bureau will be permanently based in the United States.


    California's provisional high-speed rail plan is, I have no doubt, as porky as any other such proposal, but at least it's a region in which HSR actually makes sense. Like the Northeast Corridor, the SAN-SAN belt is long and narrow but short enough for it to be reasonable to expect plenty of people to make a trade-off between air speed and rail thrift. (Not sure what happens when you factor in the subsidies.) So, of course, is Japan--especially if you're not going all the way from Sapporo to Fukuoka, which most people aren't.

    The bullet train in Japan really is a boon, and so is its newer cousin in Taiwan, which opened two years ago after a string of bidding and construction hiccups. It would be a bad idea for the US to go overboard on the boffo ground transportation projects, though...especially if federal money means Amtrak could be involved.
    Posted by Sean on 2009-02-27 10:02:29

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