Moonshots to Nowhere? The Metroliner and Failed High-Speed Rail in the United States, 1962–1977 (June 2022)
David Reinecke (Author)
The Journal of Transport History
Volume: 43
Issue: 1
Pages: 33-53
Edition Details: Issue Theme: Contributions to the post-World War II History of High-Speed Ground Transport in the United States
Language: English
In September 1962, President John F. Kennedy challenged Americans to send and return astronauts to the Moon by the close of the decade. So-called “moon shots” like the Apollo Program of the 1960s became emblematic of a new paradigm in federally-funded research and development: large in scale, ambitious in scope, technologically challenging, and most importantly public facing. The success of the moon landings, in turn, inspired federal policymakers to seek similarly ambitious moon shots in other domains including communications, energy, housing, and transportation. The moonshot paradigm, however, proved to be a poor fit when applied in civilian settings. Drawing upon original archival research, this paper details government-led efforts to implement high-speed passenger rail along the Northeast Corridor. The moonshot paradigm saddled this program in no-win scenarios, encouraging implementing agencies to overstate program benefits, underestimate their costs, and ignore technological complexity and risk.
...MoreArticle James Cohen (June 2022) Contributions to the post-World War II History of High-Speed Ground Transport in the United States. The Journal of Transport History (pp. 3-10).
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