Posted on 08/10/2010 1:47:43 PM PDT by Tribune7
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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