>>1708644There hasn't been a major rail line newly constructed in North America since the 1970s. I'm not convinced that the general inability of post-industrial America to build things implies that there is nothing that ought to be built. If you mean to say that the decades of delays and lawsuits that would inevitably hike the cost by tens of billions of dollars would eat up most of the benefits from its construction then I suppose it's hard to disagree.
There's a lot more economic activity in northern Canada today than there was in the '50s, and it skews heavily toward resource extraction - precisely the sort of industry that generally uses railroads instead of trucks given the option. The whole proposal was spawned by a report indicating that shipping Albertan oil from Alaskan ports alone would generate billions in revenue annually. An alternative to the Alaska Highway would also be valuable from a national security standpoint.
