Posted on 08/10/2010 1:47:43 PM PDT by Tribune7
The feds, since 1991, have had a plan of creating high speed rail corridors throughout the nation including one between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and since Obama took office $8 billion has been shoved into this opium-pipe dream with billions more expected although that hope may change come November.
Texas and the Sourth outside Florida haven't gotten much of this loot for some strange reason albeit Pennsylvania's not much ahead nabbing a paltry $25.6 million for the Keystone Corridor project.
Grand schemes like this would be great if resources were infinite and the simple building of it was the hardest and most expensive part. The real problems, however, start after the tracks are laid and the shiny new stations open, namely getting people to use it. Remember these things are being built not with the jaundiced eye of someone weighing the risks to his own time and money against the benefits of possible future rewards, but in accordance with starry visions of bureaucrats and trained academic parrots who have literally nothing to lose in the construction.
So the only way people are going to use this thing is by discouraging them -- them not including the bureaucrats and parrots -- from using alternatives namely the planes and automobile parts of the story.
(Excerpt) Read more at BillLawrenceOnline.Com ...
ping
These are harsh words against Green Willie’s dreams.
From the article:
Something else to ponder -- America's freight railroads are owned and operated by private companies. In Europe, they are owned and operated by government. In the 1950s, the percent of freight shipped was about the same. Today, about 38 percent of freight is shipped on railroads in the U.S. compared to 8 percent in the European Union. Maybe to make passenger trains viable again, we should get the government out of Amtrak.
Paging Choo-choo Willie.
The solution is to build personal Maglev vehicle/units that could be snapped into flatbeds, conveyed along the tracks and then converted back to wheeled vehicles for driving access roads & highways.
I’ll work on it.
Nothing in there that anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature couldn’t figure out in a couple of minutes.
AMTRAK should expand the AUTO-Train car ferry concept to more routes. I believe it only runs on the eastern corridor to Florida.
So far nobody's come up with a reasonable use case. I suspect that the only time our high speed train between Tampa and Orlando will see significant passengers is when it ferries a bunch of politicians on its maiden voyage (maybe we'll get lucky and it will hit an iceberg!).
GREAT QUOTE !
Oh and I don’t have a problem when dreamers dream WITH THEIR OWN MONEY.
Agree - it runs from Lorton Va. to Orlando Fl.
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer/AM_Route_C/1241245666320/1237405732511
How many Philadelphians really want to go to Pittsburgh to catch a Pirates game (and can't drive there or are afraid of flying)?
High speed government union expansion!
And that is worth repeating as well!!!
“Something else to ponder — America’s freight railroads are owned and operated by private companies. In Europe, they are owned and operated by government. In the 1950s, the percent of freight shipped was about the same. Today, about 38 percent of freight is shipped on railroads in the U.S. compared to 8 percent in the European Union. Maybe to make passenger trains viable again, we should get the government out of Amtrak.”
You gave a great set of comparisons that point directly at the problem.
Passenger rail transport, ANYWHERE is a government boondoggle BECAUSE IT IS RUN BY THE GOVERNMENT.
It’s possible, POSSIBLE that passenger rail transport COULD be a profitable, private enterprise.
However, as long as it is created by and propped up by government, changes to (1) the manner of its operations, (2) the way prices of tickets are set, and (3) technology will never be allowed to be discovered by markets and market economics, to make rail passenger systems self-sustaining without government subsidies FOR OPERATING COSTS, as well capital investment.
so I could have a Primanti Brothers and a Geno’s Cheesesteak on the same afternoon?
The PA turnpike was largely built on a RR right of way.
You forgot to factor in renting a car once you get to your destination.
The real problems, however, start after the tracks are laid and the shiny new stations open, namely getting people to use it.
So what kind of opium pipe has Bill Lawrence been smoking???
Milestone for Amtrak’s Phila.-to-Harrisburg line
by Athena D. Merritt
Philadelphia Business Journal
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Ridership reached a record 1.27 million trips on Amtrak’s Keystone Line between Harrisburg and Philadelphia last fiscal year, state Transportation Secretary Allen D. Biehler said Monday.
From July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010, ridership totaled 1.277 million, which was a 3.9 percent increase over the previous fiscal year’s 1.229 million trips.
Pennsylvania completed $145 million in improvements along the 104-mile line, which runs between New York and Harrisburg by way of Philadelphia, in 2006 through a joint effort with Amtrak and the Federal Transit Administration. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation launched a website to promote ridership on the Keystone Line in August 2008.
Contrary to Bill Lawrence's opinion, Amtrak has had little difficulty establishing new ridership records in the Keystone Corridor.
“However, as long as it is created by and propped up by government, changes to (1) the manner of its operations, (2) the way prices of tickets are set and (3) technology will never be allowed to be discovered by markets and market economics, to make ... systems self-sustaining without government subsidies FOR OPERATING COSTS, as well capital investment.”
And just think, we are now applying this “winning” game plan to our HEALTH CARE system! Oh, goody, goody! Can’t wait to see this train wreck - pun intended!
So, assuming that a couple of these unneeded “high speed rail” boondoggles actually occurs. How long do you think it’ll be before the full body scan will be necessary before boarding?
It will be immediate with people, specifically grandmothers and war heroes, having to remove their shoes.
Notice also, particularly in the case of “health care”, that “cost” (as in “how high the costs have become”) becomes part of the political mantra in the selling of the agenda for greater government management of something.
Notice also, that “the savior” himself said the impending future high cost of health care necessitated the kind of “reform” he was advocating.
Notice also that “what the government gives with one hand it takes away with another” and 100% of the total of what some individuals may experience, in “health care” or “health insurance costs” will be offset, by aspects of the same law, with taxes, fees, penalties and added costs mandated on the private sector for a total (cost) that will be at more than 100% of any so-called “savings”.
In other words, every liberal mantra about “cost” and “saving” is a mask and a myth derived from the fact that all they are truly doing is shifting costs, from our private decisions, to greater confiscation of our money by government, and they do so to run an enterprise that ALWAYS costs more than it ever did, or would, if left to our private decisions.
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