The High Speed Rail Boondoggle
The picture says its all. But what California's High Speed Rail amounts to in a broke state is a big pay off for politicians, unions and groups that want to profit off the taxpayers. No wonder every one from the Governor to big city mayors want to fleece the Golden State's public before it realizes it has been conned!
Somewhere, Willie Green smiles with joy.
I remember voting against this pile-o-manure, and wishing there was a “hell no” choice. There’s no future to high speed trains in America when we have millions of Muzzies and other non-Americans who would, for the price of a brick, throw the train off the track.
At least with airplanes, only the end points need secured.
California will spend $20 Billion it doesn't have to chase a $2.2 Billion grant. They will spend more in interest than they will gain from the Uncle Sugar.
And, at the end of the day, they will have nothing. People will still take the plane or drive. It just doesn't make sense to build a train from SF to LA. The numbers just don't work.
Californians vote for this because they like the aesthetics of high speed rail. They feel better about themselves knowing that there are fast trains (World Class!) whizzing about, even if nobody ever gets on a train. This could better be thought of as a giant public art project, rather than transportation.
if it’s a financial boondoggle,
you know the californicate
will be doing it.
For the cost of this train, they could buy every man, woman and child in California a fractional ownership of a Cirrus SR-22, and they could fly themselves back and forth from SF to LA in half the time.
Using the Santa Cruz model, Ca will buy the right-of-way and put in a bike path.
And a nightmare for the taxpayers who will be stuck paying for this useless boondoggle. EVERY DOLLAR THAT CREATES A GOVERNMENT JOB IS A DOLLAR LOST TO A FREE ENTERPRISE JOB. Government produces nothing (except regulations). Government has no assets except those it seizes by force from private citizens.
A good idea—in 1970. Now the costs are out of sight and the State is broke.
There’s two high speed rail lines that make money - both are in Japan - maybe one more somewhere...
Why do liberals push this idea - does anyone understand?
We took the train from San Jose to San Luis Obispo once. (Final destination- Cambria.) We thought it would be a fun trip for the kids and help us avoid holiday weekend traffic. It’s normally a 3.5 hr drive door-to-door including a rest stop or two.
It took about 20 minutes to get to downtown San Jose, park and get on the train. We ended up in a dark, smelly car filled with numerous questionable characters. My younger son was fiddling behind a seat and came out with an empty whiskey bottle (we considered ourselves lucky he didn’t find a used hypodermic needle)
It took 8.5 hrs to get to San Luis, we then rented a car and drove 40 minutes to Cambria, our destination.
So we paid for parking in San Jose, 4 train tickets, a rental car for the weekend and it took a total of 10 hours from start to finish. Does this make one bit of sense economically or time-wise??? NO!!
Today, if you plan ahead, you can purchase an $89 plane ticket to go from 5 different airports in No. Cal to ~9 different airports in So. Cal in less than 1 hr 15 mins, plus planes leave ~ every 30 minutes.
Only in screwed up California would anyone think that spending billions and billions of $$$ to replace plane travel with train travel makes sense. Of course these are the same stupid people who run empty light rail cars and buses all over the county so they can pat themselves on the back for saving the planet!!
“Stupid people are ruining this country.”
Idiots on Parade,, anyone who supports building this HSR boondoggle.
here for years!