Combined General and Maryland "Freak State" PING!
Combined General and Maryland "Freak State" PING!
Dems love Choo Choo trains which are the least efficient method of travel.
I priced out a train trip from Pennsylvania to Colorado a few weeks ago. Not quite 48 hours station to station and nearly eight hundred dollars. Each way.
No need for added Mass Transit in Metro DC. Hopefully there will be 30,000 less Federal parasites and their spawn in four years. The problem will take care of itself.
All the Maryland Metro lines do is spread the crime around the area.
Short of that, let's prohibit any federal subsidies to any jurisdictions that are above the national median in income.
The DC metro area is very affluent. Like most other parts of American, however, its political establishment has been conditioned for generations to expect federal funding for any project of significant size. That's a hard habit to break, regardless of where you live.
Amtrak and its operations should be bid out to major railroads. It will run better and cheaper. As to the Purple line, uneconomic and unnecessary boondoggle.
No wall, no subway.
NOT ONE FOOT of this encroaches into the District of Columbia. Why in the hell spend any federal dollars on this so Maryland bureaucrats can have another teat to feed off?
Not no, but HELL NO!
In the Baltimore metro area, a light rail line was built in the ‘80’s to serve as a connector between downtown Baltimore (ghettos) and the western Baltimore County suburb of Owings Mills where a large regional mall was developed. Around the same time in the eastern section of Baltimore County, another large regional mall was developed in White Marsh. No light rail ran east to the White Marsh area. The light rail served mall in Owings Mills died a painful and protracted death in part because the ghetto dwellers could travel quickly and cheaply to steal and harass at the mall. The buildings were recently razed and apartments were developed on the site. However, the non-rail served White Marsh mall has thrived and other retail developments on land surrounding it have sprung up and it is the healthiest retail sub-market in the region. It still has its “teens” problems but they are dealt with. Defunding these rail expansion projects is the best thing to be done for law abiding citizens with purchasing power. Confine the rats to the ghettos. Keep the disease in check.
Government run transportation companies ALL need to be privatized, and then (a) unprofitable routes & schedule times will be ended, and (b) fares will either pay for the business or it will go out of business. “Mass transit’s” problems are ALL related to its addiction to being subsidized by the taxpayers. It could be healthy, in some certain cases, if it wasn’t a government treasury addict.
It may also mean that some major metro areas will shrink in population, as the actual transportation cost of operating with financial efficiency at their present sizes will not be possible, without government subsidies. That means, long term, industry should quit concentrating work into already concentrated areas, and as it develops spread the jobs out across the country.
The Purple Line would be nice, but do we need it?