Posted on 05/11/2011 9:42:03 AM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
Well, I am a conservative and the economics of driving to work vs. transit in my city are:
$3.95 or so per gallon of gasoline - about 1/8 tank round trip to the office; 1/4 to the 'burbs once a week for personal reasons
$5-10 per day in a parking garage downtown
vs.
$4.50 round trip on transit with a seven block walk to the station
Right now, it just makes better economic sense in my situation to take the train. I realize that this is not feasible for everyone, but when it comes to these kind of economics, political preference honestly doesn't really matter.
Absurd nonsense fantasy. Train goes from A to B, to get to the dozens of other places the materials need to go, you put them on trucks. Trains only work as long as the tracks go where you need to be. For the other 99% of the freight hauled in this country, you need trucks.
Uh, how do you think the trailers for trucks get to where they are going? On the flatbeds of trains. I see it daily where I live which is one of the cities that has the cross country rail lines. Also coming through here daily is TONS, and I mean TONS of coal that goes to power plants, all of which just happen to be built along the rail lines (that would be the Union Pacific tracks), as are automobile assembly plants and any number of other manufacturing facilities, including chemical plants. Their product is shipped on the rail lines. So is livestock to the various stockyards which are all old enough to be built on the rail lines. Then there's the rivers. Without the Mississippi/Missouri/Ohio system, raw crude, coal and various other commodities could not by transported with any sort of cost-effective efficiency. That's what has so many economists worried with the flood in the southern Mississippi watershed right now - barge traffic can't get through. That's a BIG deal. I mean big. Along with air freight, all this must be kept running in order for the great American just-in-time system to work.
Americans don't want to believe it, but we depend on the rail lines a lot more than people think. They are worth maintaining just as the river channels and the interstate system are.
I think it is just fine for the sheep who live in downtown areas and vote doe commie dems. I just want them to pay their own way. But there is the rub. I don't know anywhere where the users fund it. It is funded by largely by those who don't use it.
That’s true.
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