The transcontinental railroad was built in six years. It has taken nine years to complete just Union Station's environmental impact statement.
’s Union Station is supposed to be the “gateway to the nation’s capital.” But after eight years and millions of dollars, it has become one of the nation’s greatest symbols of bureaucratic andbegan jumping through all the legal hoops necessary to redevelop the capital’s largest train station and surrounding land. In addition to the historic main terminal that would be preserved, the new plan widens platforms and adds a new modernized train hall and an underground parking lot.
One hundred and fifty years ago, it took three private companies just six years to build the transcontinental railroad connecting existing East Coast railways, which ended in Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the Oakland Long Wharf on the San Francisco Bay. That’s almost 1,200 miles of track laid in three fewer years than it took today’s Federal Railroad Administration to issue one environmental report on the redevelopment of a single station.
Perhaps more importantly, though, is the astonishing fact that there was no federal agency overseeing the construction of the transcontinental railroad. Congress just appropriated the money and granted the land to three private companies, and each built about a third of the railroad, which, when completed, was owned by the federal government. That is how our ancestors built part of the foundation of the amazing wealth we all enjoy today.
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