High-speed rail absurdities just keep rolling along

“If the train doesn’t stop there then you also have the reduced revenue of people stopping for gas or food. So very minor reduced costs (most of which is actually federal highway money anyway) and reduced area revenues as the train flies by.”

That’s a bad argument to use because someone like myself will turn it against you and ask if you oppose Interstate Highways that pass by the downtowns and etc. and that have beggared small businesses that were not wise enough to relocate near to offramps.

I’m not opposing HSR because it will pass towns. I’m opposing HSR because it’s incredibly expensive and nobody is going to ride the damn thing. I was simply pointing out that your Barstow argument lacked real world contact. Towns that get passed DO lose money, that’s a simple reality. Whether or not that’s a reason for or against a particular mode of transit all depends on if you care about that town. With or without money going to Barstow though HSR is still a pointless boondoggle costing dramatically more per track mile AND traveler mile than anything else.

The funny thing here is that you’re using conflicting arguments to push your point of view:

1. Towns that are passed by will lose revenue from all the cars that used to pass through their town.

2. HSR is a ‘boondoggle’ because ‘no one will use it’.

I’m sorry but pick one or the other. It cannot be both.

Also, I’m starting to wear out on the use of ‘boondoggle’ in the discussion about HSR. Not by yourself but in general. Partly it sounds like something my grandfather would say and partly because it seems when conservatives can’t compose a cogent argument on a spending subject they trot out the word ‘boondoggle’ as if that will end the argument.

I did a little Google research and some of the ‘boondoggles’ of the past include:

The transcontinental railroad.
The first steam engine.
The first steamboat.
The Wright Brothers airplane.
Automobiles.
The moon landings.
The Grand Coulee Dam.
The Golden Gate Bridge.
The New York subway system.
The US route system.
FM radio.
‘Macadam’ (paved) roads.
Electronics.
Plastics.
Electricity.
The Empire State Building.
Aircraft carriers.
Jet aircraft.
Firearms that use cartridges instead of muzzle loading.
Iron clad warships.
Diesel-electric locomotives.
Container cargo ships.

And etc.

Just saying. (-:

The funny thing here is that you clearly didn’t bother to read to the end of my first post:
Except of course people won’t actually be riding the train because it will be too expensive and on an inconvenient schedule. So basically you get what you have now and a train that flies by empty a few times a day.

As for your list “boondoggles”, notice how those were all advances in technology that nobody was sure there was a need for or how society would need or use them. HSR is a train, only “new” thing about it is speed. We already know how trains are used in society: freight. Passenger trains are the past in America. Cars are more convenient for anything you can drive in a day because you get to use your own schedule, bring more luggage, and have your car at your destination; and planes are more convenient for anything you can’t drive in a day because they’re faster, faster even that HSR.

Trains are the past, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. People that want HSR want us to spend BILLIONS of dollars on something we already know people won’t use because they already aren’t. Amtrak was supposed to be a temporary solution while somebody figured out how to make trains profitable for a private company again. 40+ years later it’s still here and it’s still not profitable, and the Atlanta airport has more passengers in a year than the entirety of Amtrak. And changing the speed of the trains isn’t going to dramatically increase ridership, you’ll just have the same not enough people riding more expensive trains.

Trains are catching on these days if you haven’t noticed. The Metrolink in Los Angeles is quite popular and the Capitol trains in Northern California have been an amazing success story. Both operate in short haul corridors where cars previously predominated.

Which brings me to this part of your comment:

“Cars are more convenient for anything you can drive in a day because you get to use your own schedule, bring more luggage, and have your car at your destination; and planes are more convenient for anything you can’t drive in a day because they’re faster, faster even that HSR.”

Cars are more convenient for travel in uncongested areas and, as you said, they’re fine for up to a day’s drive but that’s for the odd trip, not for a commute.

Planes are also wonderful but given the hassles of travel to the airport, parking, and then getting to your flight and then vice-versa at your desitination planes are not as handy as they were prior to 9/11.

In corridors of 400 to 600 miles HSR is competitive with both cars and planes in terms of time savings. A 200mph train reduces those trips to three to four hours from downtown-to-downtown. That easily beats driving.

It also becomes competitive with planes when you look at portal-to-portal trips. Flying Sacramento to downtown LA via Burbank (which is faster than Sacto to LAX) is typically a four hour to five hour trip depending on traffic. HSR will do that same trip, reliably, in about four hours including stops from downtown Sacto to Union Station. And you don’t need to deal with the TSA or rental cars.

More important for towns like Bakersfield and maybe even Fresno is that HSR makes it possible for people living in those cities to commute to San Francisco or LA to work and that will help those local economies. No working person in their right mind would do that commute by car or air right now.

For us in Wyoming a HSR corridor is being talked about from Cheyenne through Denver to as far as maybe Pueblo. We do go to Denver often and being able to just drive to Cheyenne and then hop a train into Denver would be awesome. Again, such a train opens up possibilities for workers that don’t exist right now.

But I know you are against rail and nothing I say will sway you.

Except maybe this: All the billions to be poured into HSR will be billions that the Democrats can’t give to illegal aliens and etc.

Average weekday ridership is 41,000 people, and the population of the region it services is 25,000,000. That’s .164% of the population using it. That’s not quite popular, that’s basically nobody, cars are STILL predominant.

Cars are still better for a commute too. For many of the same reasons I outlined, you get to leave on your schedule, and you have your car at your destination.

For train travel of distance you still have the problems you outlined for planes. You still have to get to the train depot, park, get to your train. And one of these days we’ll remember that terrorists have targeted passenger rail successfully in other countries and the post 9/11 hassles will land at the train depot too.

In the 400 to 600 mile range HSR can’t compete with cars. You get all the plain hassles that you outlined, and the luggage limit, and it’s probably not going to be nonstop so it won’t be much faster than the car if it’s faster at all.

It’s not competitive with planes because even if it runs nonstop it won’t be as fast as planes, and it won’t run nonstop. And you’ll still have to deal with rental cars.

If the train makes things “better” for the people in cities in the middle it’s because it stopped there. Which slows the train down, which makes it worse for people trying to get through that city to someplace else.

It doesn’t open up any possibilities. It won’t be much faster than the car, and it will be significantly more expensive, and you won’t arrive in Denver with your car.

I’m not against trains, I’m against wasting MY money on lies. The simple truth is America has moved beyond trains, they offer nothing for us anymore, and spending BILLIONS to make them a little faster won’t make them any better. The way America west of the Mississippi is laid out is just not conducive for them. You can drive to your destination cheaper or fly there fast. Period. It’s why we don’t ride trains in this country, and that’s not going to change.

And who says they can’t give the money to illegal aliens? Who do you think gets big government construction jobs? The construction company building the border fence in San Diego hired illegals. This about the hilarity of that.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.