Posted on 04/05/2012 11:23:00 AM PDT by BradtotheBone
Officials in Japan and South Korea are telling Houston-area Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee that they are interested in helping Texas build a high-speed rail line between Houston and Dallas.
The Houston Democrat said the foreign officials described their interest to her during an official congressional visit to Japan, South Korea and China.
“This is absolutely the right direction America should be moving toward,” said Jackson Lee, who traveled between Osaka and Tokyo on Japan’s world famous high speed rail system.
“We should be looking at high-speed rail that can provide clean, safe and efficient transportation that can move people from one destination to another,” the lawmaker said in a statement issued by her office.
Jackson Lee said she had fought hard to secure initial funding for Texas’ high-speed rail line from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The potential high-speed rail route between Houston and Dallas will include only one or two stops in between.
“Japanese and South Korean officials both expressed interest in supporting and providing high-speed rail in the state of Texas,” Jackson Lee’s statement said.
The lawmaker said she was working to arrange visits to Houston by the foreign officials so they could “see first-hand our needs and plans for an expanded rail transportation system.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.chron.com ...
I’m all for it...but not with taxpayer’s money.
WTF is it with libs and High Speed Trains?
We already have a bullet train between Dallas and Houston, and several other cities in Texas. It is called Southwest Airlines, a private, and for now, profitable enterprise. I think they run about 25 flights a day, with about an hour flight time.
SJL, please explain why taxpayers need to waste money and seize private property, to build a gubmint choo choo that nobody will ride? I think a better use of taxpayer money is to invest it in solar power. I hear that the ROI is very strong in green energy.
There Fixed it!.
I’ve said this before but it needs repeating - What is it about high speed rail and progressives? When has a large segment of the public ever demanded more high speed rail? And yet time and time again the subject comes up.
Why?
Yes, I know- unions and cronyism and so forth. But still, it does seem to hold some fascination with progressives. As if it’s an integral part of some master plan. Sooner or later it’s always there.
Exactly
Same in California
North state to southern Cal in less than an hour on Southwest, leaving either every hour or every other hour.
Yet, the Loony libs want to spend a gazillion dollars for a high speed train between Bakersfield (where nobody wants to go) and San Francisco.
F’n libs and other people’s money.
I hear she’s doing much of the design and engineering work herself!
This is classic big government nonsense.
The only place where they might be a demand for this sort of thing is the northeast - where it is completely unaffordable.
You could probably build it in Texas, but no one will use it here.
Not if I can help it. And definitely not in Summer.
I had heard Dallas-Houston was a relationship a lot like Pittsburgh-Philadelphia.
Not particularly warm and fuzzy if you get my drift.
I've always thought it was just part of the herd mentality of the socialists. Feed the herd, move the herd, control the herd. Individuals need not attend.
Oh, please-not that s*** again! Let Silly Jackson Lee and the foreign “officials” use Southwest Airlines like everyone else does-it is fast, privately owned and no doubt less expensive than government locomotive could ever be-remember Amtrak, anyone?
Let’s first try to install a bullet train from Houston to Katy.
Faster transport to the re-education camps.......
Trains are a good example of 19th century technology. I thought these progressive cretins prided themselves on “Winning The Future”.
Maybe that’s not what WTF means
“...safe and efficient transportation that can move people from one destination to another.”
I am so glad she “clarified” the transportation thing. Since it would be a government project, it is entirely possible that it might end up only moving people from one place back to the same place...the meaning of transportation notwithstanding.
I am still left with some concerns - when I have decided on my destinatin, I don’t want to be delivered to another destination.
What did she mean? Certainly she isn’t stupid enough to think transportation means something other than moving from one place to another, nor could she be stupid enough to think that when a person travels they start at their destination. She’s not THAT stupid, is she?
Sure but only if the KEEP her in Dallas.
They already have the Acela train that runs from Portland to Boston to Providence to NYC to Philly to Baltimore and finally to DC.
The only people that ride it are people who live in the city where it is convienent to get to the station.
The only time I ever considered taking it was into NYC because it brings you into Penn Station(under Madison Square Garden) in midtown Mahattan. The main reason there is it is SO EXPENSIVE to park your car in NYC($45+ a day).
Okay, I'm back. So there is an Acela that departs Philadelphia at 11:07am and arrives in DC at 12:45pm.
On the other hand, I could opt for the old-school, slow regional line. It leaves at 11:10am and arrives in DC at 1pm.
So the high end, high speed train gets me to DC 15 minutes earlier that the slow regional that makes twice as many stops? Bust!
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