Sunday, May 17, 2009

What's Cookie Cutter?

I'm not sure I understand. FRA rep Karen Rae (Who was head of Cap Metro in Austin during the first Light Rail Election) has said that they don't want a cookie cutter approach to HSR.
"And one of the things we're trying not to do is create a cookie cutter, where everything is exactly the same," Rae said. "It really needs to be designed around the local and state needs."
I hope that doesn't mean we rid ourselves of standards that make all these lines interoperable. The last thing we need is BART like decisions which make the line so specialized that it becomes more expensive in the long run. I have a feeling it's the issue of different speeds being allowed. Though it would be nice if the FRA would stop being such morons on the issue of split rail operations and buff strength requirements for those vehicles. That's another post.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just think about how bicycles and trucks can travel on the same streets at the same time!

crzwdjk said...

I think maybe they're saying that you can have both an all-new line like CAHSR, an existing service like the NEC, and a series of incremental upgrades like in the midwest, all under one umbrella. A big and diverse country calls for diverse solutions, and of course interoperability standards to make it all work together.