"In less than a decade, we constructed more high-speed rail lines than what it took Japan and Europe 40 years to build, " said Zhao Jian, an economics professor at Beijing Jiaotong University and one of the country's leading experts on rail transportation.

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We believe that these kinds of investments are critical for the future economic growth of this country and to allow us to compete with countries around the world where, as you know, high-speed rail is quite a bit further advanced than it is here in the United States.

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Bear in mind it carries more passengers in one day than the whole of the UK's rail system.

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To take it a step further, according to USDOT statistics, pipelines are 451 times safer than rail on a per-mile basis.

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It was estimated in the EIS, rail would cause 8% more greenhouse gas per year than the XL pipeline.

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Except that, whatever he says for public consumption, he seems to know the truth is that privacy invasion, for most consumers, is less like a lethal electrified rail than like a very hot bath: they just need to be eased into it.

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New Jersey Transit is no more consistent than the MTA, forbidding alcohol on its Hudson-Bergen light-rail line while allowing it on other services.

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