Blight Rail allows tourists to view the ruins of Detroit.
Posted on 07/25/2014 10:28:15 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
They haven’t paid attention to the ‘high speed rail’ to nowhere in California
The whole point of these travesties is NOT to move people around, but to spend taxpayer money to reward campaign contributors and secure public works jobs to buy votes. Any actual benefit is accidental and unplanned.
At $46 million per mile, it certainly isn’t the most money spent on light rail in the country in terms of capital cost; AFAIK, that dubious honor belongs to the Newark NJ light rail extension, at $275 million (for one mile) in 2016 dollars. (Even though there’s an underground segment, the tunnels were already there from the time of the Cedar Street Subway.)
This is a great example of how the massive state just lumbers along without regard to the reality of its citizens’ situation. The city is bankrupt and parking is readily available, yet the state churns out yet another spending project. The project’s utility isn’t to relieve congestion or make the transportation system better. Its utility is that without it, a lot of city bureaucrats would have nothing to do and could not justify their existence on the public payroll. Until someone kills off these departments in their entirety, the workers will churn out spending projects whether they are necessary or not.
On top of all that, “light rail” systems have the “proof-of-payment” fare collection system, where you buy a ticket and ride, and sometimes there will be a fare inspector on board and sometimes not, so there’s a lot of fare evasion, never mind some of the lowest fare recovery ratios around, quite often well under 10 percent.
John Frum Thinking. If we build it they will come only works in the movies.
They should concentrate on currently needed infrastructure like the International trade crossing bridge. As the economy grows as a result of that, then they can look at whether they need light rail.
Until them, privately owned bus companies like the Detroit Bus company are the way to go.
Sorry; make that 2014 dollars. I don’t have an inflation calculator that goes two years into the future :)
The people mover is only some 7% rider funded with taxpayers picking up the other 93%.
There is a small amount of irony in the fact that, if I move to the area of Detroit I like the most (Corktown), I’ll be able to ride this into the city when my car gets stolen. ;)
Just laying in new infrastructure for the soon to come booming resurgence of Detroit.. Or sumthin’.
“America’s Greatest Boondoggle?”
I dunno, here in Jacksonville Fl. where we have a sports complex consisting of an NFL stadium, an excellent minor league baseball park and a fairly new and very nice 15,000 seat indoor arena all within walking distance of each other we also have a people mover that cost millions and DOES NOT go to any of those venues...........Never been able to understand that one.
“A $137 million three-mile train is coming to a nearly deserted avenue in a bankrupt city.”
Wow! We have one of those here in Tucson! In fact the ribbon cutting is scheduled for today along with street closures in the business district to accommodate the ceremonies today and tomorrow! In addition they expect a large number of people to take occasion to ride for free Saturday and Sunday as part of the Grand Opening of the line.
Mahvelous darling. Mahvelous.
Blight Rail allows tourists to view the ruins of Detroit.
true words
Don’t think I’d pick DBC if I really had to ride the bus there, honestly . . .
Funny thing is, when politicians were dismantling streetcar systems, they were selling the whole “privatization” angle versus power company “monopolies” running the streetcars (in many, but not all cases). But not long after that, the cities (and the state in some cases, e.g. New Jersey) took over the bus systems, which was worse than the prior setup.
The people mover still works? I thought it was abandoned in the 1990’s.
You would rather ride the city buses?
Ugh. Athens, Greece imitates 1970s/1980s NYC subway.
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