FORWARD
Posted on 10/07/2010 6:09:53 AM PDT by Willie Green
It isn’t PUBLIC owned
"Conservtaive high-speed rail initiative" is a contradiction in terms.
Any government lead initiative is socialistic, not conservative.
If the market decides to pursue high speed rail I'd be all for it. If government is involved then it is a violation of our constitution and every conservative principle.
That is why the GOP is against it. It's illegal for government to be involved in it.
He’s a one trac guy.
Who wants to be like Europe? Or Japan for that matter? They’re both broke or at least much of Europe is.
In the end, passenger rail is just a bus-line with a more restricted route.
How?
High speed rail in America — a terrorist’s wet dream.
Willie's friends, close friends in the anti oil movement....Right Willie?
And much higher start up costs (thousands of times greater) and much higher maintenance cost and a far more restricted schedule. Rail has all the disadvantages and none of the advantages of bus rapid transit.
The only advantage that rail has is that it's quaint.
Most any area of the USA where passenger rail service is practical, has it.
I know plenty of areas that DID have passenger rail, but
ended when it was no longer feasible or profitable.
Actually, that applies to a large part of the USA.
As I posted earlier, the USA IS NOT Europe.
The North East is supposedly one of the few places that supposedly cover costs for Amtrak, depending on who is counting. Anyways, you can by bus from hundreds if not thousands of places way closer get to anywhere else for way, way, less, like 75 percent less, than the train. The buses are newer, cleaner and have free wifi. And the bus lines pay taxes, Amtrak besides being a bottomless money pit, pays no taxes. Also, their pension is in trouble,so Willie will want you to pay for their pension too. How’s yours doing?
Practically everything is a terrorist’s wet dream, so that’s not much of a point.
I thought the idea was to move America back and forth.
If God had meant man to fly, He wouldn’t have given us the steam locomotive!
It’s just common sense!
You still haven't answered why private enterprise won't start up their own rail service, sans heavy government subsidies.
That one is easy, and is true since the very beginning of rail - Eminent Domain. It is profoundly expensive to try to patch together the land required for rail of any distance and most of that is spent on lawyers and in courts. It is absolutely required to have the Police Powers of the State to come in and ED the property and have the property owners sell it for pennies on the dollar and do it within the lifetime of the investors.
Take the Trans-Texas Corridor as an example. Because the hassle of getting the land was so great, it had to be placed considerable distance from where people actually live and work. Because of the inconvenience, the only way to increase use is to make the existing/competing routes more painful to use, hence the private company that bought the right to build the TTC demanded that I-35 be made obsolete and such a hassle to use that people would drive a hundred miles out of their way to pay to use the new route.
For rail to make any sense, all other forms of convenient transportation need to be harmed/destroyed sufficiently so that people, in desperation, are willing to go through the hassle and expense of using the rail. In Austin, part of the money to build up the metro rail system was spent to deliberately mis-time traffic lights and increase traffic congestion and gridlock so as to accomplish the effect of beating into submission the population to seriously consider the less painful choice of rail. This has actually been a boon to downtown condo builders because the hassle of public transportation is greater than the cost and lifestyle adjustment of living in an expensive and noisy condo downtown.
It takes the arrogance and utter contempt of humanity found in government to pull that kind of obscenity off without being imprisoned or killed.
Mussellini was overly focused on the train system, “for the people’s benefit”, too.
Coincidence?
It follows, so they say, that since none have even attempted to enter this business, that there is no profit in it.
Therefore, since the gummint (local, state, and/or federal) will enter into it, the losses incurred will be subsidized by the tax paying public.
.
Does this arguement "hold water"? (My apologies to "My Cousin Vinny")
They have “begun” the high-speed rail project from Chicago to St. Louis. They say it take only 4.5 hours for the trip.
I live in the suburbs. I can drive the trip in 5 hours. How is that “high-speed rail”?
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