Posted on 05/26/2019 5:46:26 AM PDT by vannrox
Well, California Governor Gavin Newsom has abandoned plans to build a high-speed railroad between Los Angeles and San Francisco. After spending billions of dollars in funds, much of it from the Federal government, the Governor said that the project should be shelved.
He cited that the project was too expensive.
The face of American politics today. This is the slick and well-packaged oligarchy pick for California. Mr. California Governor Gavin Newsom. Look how plastic he appears. Why, he could be right out of one of those political villains from a 1980’s John Cusack movie.
It all began ten years ago. Back then, President Obama called for a network of high-speed railroads to criss-cross the country “within 25 years”. The nation roared with glee and cheering his forward thinking.
Perspicacious = To be far-sighted in understanding things.
At that time, of course, the rest of the world had already implemented High Speed Rail. America was going to get involved in a game of “catch up”.
Only this time, progressive values and liberal management would lead the way.
Look back. The year is 2009; “President Obama’s goal of building a high-speed rail network that at least 80 percent of Americans will have access to by 2025, is facing major resistance in Congress. Earlier this week, Vice President Joe Biden announced a $53 billion, six year plan to get the U.S. high-speed rail network going with $8 billion over the next year spent towards building new lines and upgrading existing passenger lines in areas such as the northeast and midwest.:
His plan, began its’ implementation through California.
Of course, compared to the rest of the world, it’s pretty modest. The idea was to link the two largest cities in California together. This would occur by placing rail lines through the large entirely rural California valley. The top speed would be limited to 220 MPH, which is the global norm. The most ambitious plans would have 800 miles of rail line, paid in part by the Federal government and bonds issued by the (insolvent) California government.
The decision to cancel this program was welcomed by Conservatives, and derailed by Liberals. Both for reasons related towards political considerations. However, in my mind, everyone loses.
What’s worse, rubbing salt in the wound, comes President Trump. He rightfully questioned the decision to kill the project. As a businessman, you do not casually start of kill things without study, and an analysis of the consequences. Obviously, there were concerns that the decision to kill the project were not carefully thought out.
This is an excerpt. You can read the rest HERE.
Have you noticed all the huge buses driving around your community with TWO passengers or LESS?
No?
That's because buses have been covered with ‘art work’ so the public can't see what a failure they are... And the reason they're failures is because the people on government committees designed to support public transportation don't use public transportation... and no one has to profit from it so it's done badly, ... It's how socialism works - or more accurately, how socialism fails.
Grammar! Punctuation! Coherence! Strike three.
The reason we don’t have passenger trains and high speed rail is that after W.W. II air travel took over and passenger trains were phased out in favor of moving freight.
In Europe, Japan, etc. the government runs the train systems and they are subsidized and that is how they have high speed rail.
To covert and build a high speed passenger rail service would cost untold Trillions of Dollars which the railroads could not afford to do, even with the government helping we could not afford it.
That is true but I wouldn’t want to get on either one.
Check out China’s highway system...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-XDxCb92X4
Jeremy say’s Britain is doomed..
give it a break
Back to the 1800s we go !
We could, but the costs would be worse than air travel without significant subsidies (OUR money to support those who use them).
3,000 miles, more like.The problem high speed rail has is that it’s slow compared to jet airliners, and jet airline travel costs are getting more cost-competitive with the advance of gas turbine technology and airframe construction technology. So even if you think you might be able to break even on a “high speed” railroad in today’s market, you have to reckon with the possibility that competition from jets will be even tougher by the time your railroad gets built.
Don't you dare let the late great Willie choo-choo Green hear you say that!
I’m in europe and japan quite a bit for work and take the bullet trains frequently. It’s usually Paris to Cologne or Frankfurt and Tokyo to Osaka. I like them and they fit the niche but they’d be totally impractical in the U.S. First, the distances are short unlike the U.S. They do about 200 mph but nobody takes them if the ride is going to be over four hours, they go by air then. That rules out most major city pairs in the U.S. except the northeast corridor. They don’t stop at every podunk town in between, they usually only make a couple of stops between the major cities and the doors open for about 30 seconds before they’re off again. Putting a stop at every small town would defeat the purpose and people would quit using them. They also don’t have road crossings, they go over or under all roads.
Cars and fuel are also prohibitively expensive in europe and japan. It’s not that people necessarily want to take the train, it’s that driving is so expensive that it makes the train more attractive. Most would rather drive I’m sure. The high price of driving is one thing that makes their quality of life less than ours in the U.S. I don’t want to be priced out of the freedom that vehicles give to our lifestyle in the U.S. and be forced onto trains, that’ll decrease my quality of life. That same decreased access to affordable automobiles is what drives them to be more city centric which makes train travel more viable. It’s much more common for a european or japanese to live in a big city in a small apartment than it is for americans. They might enjoy living in a high rise in a 800 sq ft apartment but I wouldn’t enjoy that. I’ll take my 2700 sq ft house on my 160 acres with a pond in the country. I’m just a middle class pogue but to live like I do Germany or Japan I’d have to be rich.
The fact that train travel is more prevalent in those countries is a sign that their living standard is lower than ours, it’s not something that we necessarily want to emulate.
same reason they don’t have ‘em in Canada and Australia but have ‘em in Japan: it takes a compact country with a high population density to have any chance that they’re economically feasible ...
You should read the article.
They have them in Australia. As well as Russia, and China where the distances are quite enormous between cities.
1) America is large. There’s no HSR from Moscow to Paris, is there?
Yes there is HSR between Moscow to Paris.
“Yes there is HSR between Moscow to Paris”
Reference?
WHY???
Cuz they are HORRIBLY expensive, and in America we have a ‘Johnny Canal’ type problem (we’d need a network of them or you’d just have to fly a plane again anyway to get to/from the FEW endpoint places the system would have.
They never would be able to pay for themselves.
Government is hardly able to do the job right on anything.
Airplanes are far more versatile (scalable for the traffic)
So then,why don’t we have high speed rail, or even successful light rail projects? All of those are money losers, too. Light rail steals resources from better forms of transit, like buses, that poor people need, to cater to a hobby of the wealthy elite. Maybe not on the scale of high speed rail, but steals nonetheless.
Since this speed rail is so great, someone should easily be able to convince investors to build one with private money. Like light rail all over the country, it will never be a commercial success. The only way it can be built and operated is by stealing from taxpayers at gunpoint. That’s how they do it in China the way.
But if this idea is so great, it will be privately built and be successful any day now.
But it has no economic value.
Sadly, for all the moon-eyed rail enthusiast out there. I’m all for them, as long as they use their own money.
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