Posted on 02/28/2011 12:56:01 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
...Remarkably widespread derision has greeted the Obama administration’s damn-the-arithmetic-full-speed-ahead proposal to spend $53 billion more (after the $8 billion in stimulus money and $2.4 billion in enticements to 23 states) in the next six years pursuant to the president’s loopy goal of giving “80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail.” “Access” and “high-speed” to be defined later.
...[Florida's] Rick Scott, has joined Ohio’s (...Kasich) and Wisconsin’s (...Walker) in rejecting federal incentives—more than $2 billion in Florida’s case—to begin a high-speed rail project....
The three governors want to spare their states from paying the much larger sums likely to be required for construction-cost overruns and operating subsidies when ridership projections prove to be delusional...Washington, disdaining the decisions of Ohio and Wisconsin voters, replied that it will find states that will waste the money.
California will. Although prostrate from its own profligacy, it will sink tens of billions of its own taxpayers’ money in the 616-mile San Francisco–to–San Diego line. Supposedly 39 million people will eagerly pay much more than an airfare in order to travel slower...
Randal O’Toole of the Cato Institute notes that high-speed rail connects big-city downtowns, where only 7 percent of Americans work and 1 percent live.
[snip]
To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.
Time was, the progressive cry was “Workers of the world unite!” or “Power to the people!” Now it is less resonant: “All aboard!”
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
I hear you but the Left doesn’t care. They’ll be limiting our energy sources until we can’t fill the tank or heat our “large” homes.
We need to elect representatives that understand the hell coming at us.
Exactly. High speed rail (HSR) makes no sense going from Tampa to Orlando because neither city has effective local transportation. If you live in Clearwater it would be a 45 minute drive to the proposed Tampa station. You would then need to park (paying of course), get on the train, ride to Orlando, rent a car, then drive to your destination. It will probably take 3 hours total while the current drive is 1 hour 45 minutes and it will also be more expensive. HSR would only make sense if you were linking transit systems.
they love trains because in the first half of the 20th. century they were proven to be a very efficient and effective method of shipping vast portions of the population off into camps....
If I had a job fifty to one hundred miles from my home, then I guess high-speed rail would be great. But I don’t live that far from my job, and neither do most Americans. The only commuters who use less-than-high speed rail now are the ones who work in the huge megalopolises. In short, there is no demand for high-speed rail. Except in the wild imaginations of liberal eco-freaks.
Never happen. For medium to short distances driving is far more convenient (and cheaper). For long distances air has huge and insurmountable time advantages.
HSR could possibly work in North East corrider. But then I understand that the amtrak train there STILL doesn't make a profit.
The problem is that rail should be built with private money and the fact that this is not the right time yet.
If HSR had potential for being a profitable enterprise it would already be being built with private funds. It is not because the money people KNOW that HSR will never make a profit.
Still shudder at the memory of 'the ONE'; making his late night 'coming out'-as-President speech; in Chicago.
Rather than celebratory with his Campaign folks; he was totally alone on stage; (think big screen(s?) behind him). No VP; no Michelle, family; NO one. It was a frightening MO in the message it communicated. i.e. a 'Second Coming event' and O was the singular. . .answer. The spotlight shone, directly upon him; and only HIM. Could not count the I's that filled every sentence he uttered - and the messianic intonations added.
And then there was the event in LA. . . the Greek columns, et al; ad nauseum and the garbage - before and after.
That and the rest of Obama's history and MO; it's own foretelling. . .
Government/union jobs; small rent controlled urban apartments; public transportation and schools...
Cars = Freedom
Trains = control
The government can control subsidies, ridership, lines, schedules, security, regulations. Yes, those liberals love controlling our lives. That is hard to do when every Tom, Dick, and Harry has the freedom to take his car anywhere he wants any time he wants.
And why is it becoming inefficient? It's seeing more government interference via the TSA. Why in the world would you think that government inefficiency would not infect the railroads too? We've already had one news report of TSA agents doing a security check on folks getting OFF a train.
How efficient will it be when you add two hours for security lines at both end of the already-too-long train ride?
My understanding is that trains could be time competitive, even with current speeds for distances between 100 and 300 (possibly 500) miles. Higher speeds would make the time factors much better, but once you get over ~700 miles no realistic train speed would be time competitive.
If HSR had potential for being a profitable enterprise it would already be being built with private funds. It is not because the money people KNOW that HSR will never make a profit.
I have seen claims that the presence of AMTRAC prevents private operators from attempting to enter the market for either low or high speed rail. The only private passenger railroads in this country currently operating are for tourists (and the rail is the destination).
As if this is a legimate endeavor. That the argument we should be concentrated in high-rise rabbit warrens and the suburbs and the countryside should be de-populated is up for discussion.
Frighteningly, it is.
High-rise apartments equipped with centralized door locking, water, power and climate control. Approved entertainment and news feeds. And cameras to monitor everyone's coming and going. Keep the ants under control! Move them around efficiently, maximize their output!
Sounds like the worst of Pol Pot countryside and the Nazis Warsaw ghetto to me...We need to change that with a quickness...
100 miles. figure one hour average time to drive to the station. Wait for the train (figure 1 hour for security and boarding). About 1 hour for the trip (about the same as a regional jet). Another 30 minutes to get your luggage and another 10 to get the rental car. add 20 minutes to get to the meeting/hotel. Total time about 4 hours. Total driving time (assuming destination is beyond the local train station): 1 hr to station, 1 1/2 hours to destination, 20 minutes to meeting/hotel. Total 2 1/2 hours and I didn't have to put up with any undesireable types for the whole trip.
200 miles, 3 hours overhead plus about 1 1/2 hours for the trip. Total time 4 1/2 hours. Total time driving: 5 hours (1 hr to station, 3 1/2 to other end, 20 minutes to meeting). AND I didn't have to put up with any undesirables.
(Flight time is about 3 hours).
300 miles. HSR 3 hrs overhead plus 2 hours travel time (giving them a very generous 150MPH) = 5 hours. Driving time 7 1/2 hours. Flying time about 3 1/2 hours.
And if I drive I don't have to put up with undesirables.
But the BIG BIG savings comes if I'm traveling with someone else. Then my already minimal driving costs decrease by half or more (the more people go, the cheaper it is)
I have seen claims that the presence of AMTRAC prevents private operators from attempting to enter the market for either low or high speed rail. The only private passenger railroads in this country currently operating are for tourists (and the rail is the destination).
Amtrak was started because the passenger rail lines all went broke. No one gets into the market because no one can make money in passenger rail. Even amtrak is heavily subsidized. There is no ridership at sustainable prices. Passenger rail died in the fifties and will remain dead as long as their are planes and automobiles.
Didn't see the explanation.
OK, here you go:
"When gasoline is a million dollars a gallon, you'll be glad you have high speed rail!!!
There. I don't miss him a bit.
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