Freepers, your Contributions make every difference!
Please keep ‘em coming! Thank you all very much!
Posted on 04/13/2013 11:59:34 AM PDT by george76
the California High-Speed Rail System will saddle taxpayers with losses between $124 million to $373 million a year.
Exaggerated ridership estimates and slower-than-promised trip speeds make the California bullet train project a big financial loser for taxpayers...
...
The [California High-Speed Rail Authority’s] financing assertions are virtual fantasy
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
“Boxcar” Willie Green is that you?
So when you wrote “can never” you meant “should never.”
Given the technical understanding of the politicians who scarf up the subsidies, those systems ‘can never’ ~ outside of isolated ‘subway’ systems, rail is dead when it comes to passenger traffic. It’s a waste of money to try to bring it back. Freight, on the other hand, IS rail these days in this country.
Collectivists don’t measure success by a cost/benefit formula. Success is simply doing the project, never mind the cost or the wisdom of it.
” It will be twice that estimate, AT LEAST”
My guess? 4 times.
But the well connected will make multi-millions and politicians will get huge campaign contributions.
That’s what really counts - isn’t it?
/s
...the right track.
.
Yet the Reason Foundation says even those lowered estimates are unrealistic; 2035 ridership is likely to be 65% to 77% lower.
Not This (Stuff) Again. Ok Jerry, let's go over this just one more time, then you really have to go to bed.
The latest estimates are for $100B in capital costs to build the thing. That's the stations and rails and trains. $100B at let's say 5% interest (because CA is broke and their bonds should pay what these days is considered "top dollar") is $5B per year. Divide that by the very most optimistic estimate of 30M passengers per year to get $166 per passenger.
The state would do better to pay for a no-advance-purchase Southwest ticket and a SuperShuttle for door-to-door service at each end.
Oh and of course that doesn't count operating expenses of salaries, fuel to run the thing (the most-expensive "green" energy they can find of course), advertising, etc. Add that in and now your Southwest passenger gets a day at Disneyland or a night at a hotel courtesy of the state as well.
Do these loses include amortizing the (enormous) capital cost; or are they just losses on annual operating costs?
Thanks george76.
High-Speed Rail in California Brings Agenda 21 Megacities Closer
It costs a lot of money to save the planet...
My rule of thumb was that freight made the expenses, mail made the profit, and passengers made the cake.
Of course, government cannot understand any of that.
“Even though it loses money, its more about control.”
And as P.J. O’Rourke often says, “Government programs are not failures, they’re underfunded”
Now there is daylight on the reasons why the water was taken from the richest part of the Central Valley of Calif,.
The high speed rail will go rith thru there. Cost of land acquisition went down drastically.
Today’s CA public works = Democrat money-laundering operations through unions.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.