Happy Fourth of July

World Hum’s Most Read: June 28-July 3

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The LAX Theme Building, Then and Now

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Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel

Inside Slum Tourism

With mixed feelings, Rob Verger recently signed on for a tour of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. He looks back on the experience—and the photos he was allowed to take.

Break Bread and Brie in France

Great cheese abounds in the land of Gaul, but dig in and you risk committing any number of faux pas. Terry Ward explains how to partake of the nation’s famed fromage with savoir faire.

10 Wanderlust-Inducing Summer Concerts

Call it world music or global pop or the sound of the world hum. Ben Keene reveals 10 acts on tour that are sure to transport you. Plus videos.

Bryan Mealer: ‘War and Deliverance in Congo’

The former AP correspondent traveled up the Congo River. Frank Bures asks the author of “All Things Must Fight to Live” about following in the wake of Joseph Conrad. 

A Journey Into ‘The Second World’

Some bureaucrats joke that they would never claim expertise about countries they had not at least flown over. In an excerpt from his new book, Parag Khanna argues that real global understanding can only come from serious travel.

‘The Worst Guidebook Writer Ever’?

Lonely Planet author Robert Reid reviews Thomas Kohnstamm’s “Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?” and weighs in on the controversy surrounding it

Who’s Slowing Down a High-Speed Train in California?

California must build an HSR. The air service must be phased out for environmental reasons, and the rising cost/dwindling availability of oil.

The public wants HSR.

Jack Snyder
Shepherdstown, WV

I’m with you, Jim. Until a high-speed line is built, I’ll stick with my car. Amtrak is a mess. The congestion caused by sharing track with freight trains means you’ll never arrive anywhere on time...or even close to it. In your case, 5 to 6 hours of numerous inexplicable delays.

And if I understand it correctly, TambourineMan, the freight trains always get priority.

That’s certainly the way it seemed to be on my trip.

What are we, chattel?

I think none of you guys get it at all.  An SF-LA line would take a few cars off the road...total waste of money, just a slow I-5 replacement.
We already have airplanes/airports for that. 

What we need is SD-LA, LA-Riverside and SF-Sac and SF-SJ lines, thats where all the highways/cars go!  In other words, just turn Caltrain, Altamont, Metrolink, Coaster into high speed rail, no fuss, no land grab, no billion dollar tunnels through mountains (San Gabriel and Coast Mtns). 

We have nothing that can go between these cities in half an hour currently.  BTW, it would cost like 1/3 the price of the whole system too!  Who needs SF-LA?

You can thank the rail companies for most of the opposition.  In the 1800’s they were given huge land grants to complete the transcontennial railroad and have profited greatly from it. They are not humored by those of use who wish to travel on their rails and decrease their profit stream.  I’ve ridden Amtrak many times and frankly they are frustrated because they get no support from Congress, the riders or the public.  Their lucky if they get enough money to buy bedsheets for the sleeper car.  Rail service is truly the illigitimate child of US transportation.

BE SERIOUS is the one who fails to ‘get it.’ The point of HSR is to begin to get rid of domestic air service, so it is logical to begin with SF-LA, one of the busiest air markets in the world.

We face dwinding oil supplies and global climate change due to massive human-generated CO2 pollution.  ALL airlines--domestic and international will be replaced within the next 20 years.  Fast trains on land, fast ships on the seas....

Jack Snyder
Shepherdstown, WV

I am against the HSR proposal as it stands, and I’ll tell u why.  It is a dumb way to go about things, when there is a better way.  Such an expensive project should be useful.  Cut out the LA-SF part, and it will cost 1/3, it will be done 5 years earlier, and carry 95% of the traffic.  Then I will vote for it. 

Nobody commutes LA-SF anyway, plus there is something that already exists called an airplane.  Get commuters off the road is the key.  LA-SD, LA-Riverside, SF-San Jose, SF-Sac will get commuters off the road.

Peak Oil and the evolving environmental catastrophe require us to phase out domestic US air service by 2020, if not sooner.

It will take the USA 25 years to fully complete intercity HSR service, using mostly Interstate highway medians and former rail rights-of-way in the cities (as in Europe). 

California may be the first segment completed, LA-SF and to Sacramento. 

There is NO DOUBT this system will be heavily used, and quickly justify its cost.  As a former Sacramento resident, I know this is needed and support it fully....

Jack Snyder
Shepherdstown, WV

European fast rail amazed us on a recent trip. We returned home to So Cal and wondered why the richest country on earth is riding in the slow lane. Apparently in the 1920s the oil/car industry was given the green light instead of efficient trains. In today’s Parade magazine (Nov. 4, 07) the front page article is about American trains and how they can be saved. I understand that money and greed generally run a system but the lack of trains, especially in congested Calif, is ridiculous. People need to writeto their congressional representatives and tell them to get the trains on track!

I had dreamed about a TGV in every country ever since I was in one when I visited France. Why can’t we have these lines at least between the major cities?