Orange County Register: Hit the brake on bullet train, before we're broke

Takes longer than three to drive up to Seattle, just on account of traffic.

And in your very next post...

You don't live in Orange County. I live in Orange County. And unless you're claiming Los Angeles County has their shit together, you're doing exactly what you're complaining about.

Between about 3:300-6:30pm it takes about an hour and a half to get from Ft. Lewis to the Southern end of Bellevue (so not even including DT Bellevue traffic) IF there are no accidents/disruptions. Throw in Seattle traffic and you're looking at 2 hours minimum.

In that section you've got the Ft. Lewis Traffic Jam (I5 is two lanes each direction there.... GENIUS!), DT Tacoma Traffic Jam, and then the I5/405 Interchange Traffic Jam.

Ask me how much I miss doing that everyday...

How much do you miss driving that every day?

As an aside, I thought the only four lane section of I-5 between Everett and Portland was between Centralia and Tumwater

I have made the drive at least a dozen times, probably more. Takes me around three hours. Google Maps says it takes 2:55. One time I wound up having to fly from San Diego to Portland through Seatac. Your inability to drive in a timely manner is not my concern.

Yeah, and it took me 45 minutes to get to Lewis from Bellevue when I left home at 4:45am.

However most of the day travel is business travel and during the times when business travelers want to get from Portland to Seattle and back again the roads are a mess.

THUS Alaska Airlines having a half hourly shuttle and the Amtrak Cascades trains filling up most days.

Not at all. Worst was when it decided to actually rain (and not just the normal drizzle) and the drivers were all freaking out like it was the 2nd Flood or something. I about broke off my stearing wheel that day. Didn't get home until after 8.

On the plus side I didn't have to live in Tacoma so....

Only two through lanes there IIRC. The third is on and off.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/68973.html#ixzz1eZzEfzAt

Great news for California. Last week we were awarded $1 billion of the $2.6 billion Florida turned down for HSR and they still haven't decided what to do with the other $1.6 billion so we might get part of that money too. :hungry:

Knowing the way CA pisses away money that 1 billion has already been spent and CA will still not see that HSR for decades if ever.

Great. Now California can waste my federal tax dollars, too.

Here's the thing: Suppose someone gives you the latest and greatest Lamborghini. Even better than California's high speed rail, right? Because it doesn't cost you a dime. Right?

Of course the thing gets around 7mpg. And requires a special $7 a gallon racing gas. And parts and maintenance on it are insane. And the insurance is even worse. And you can't very well just park it on the street.

In the end, let's say our "free" Lamborghini winds up costing $20,000 a year to own. Not quite such a great deal then, huh?

Of course if we were talking about a Lamborghini, we could turn around and sell it. Even if we only got 10 cents on the dollar that would be a nice little sum. But how do you sell a high-speed rail line? Even if, say, Montana wanted it, the tracks are on the ground in California.

I wonder if anyone believes it's a boondoggle now...

Not a foot of track has been laid, the cost has already ballooned to triple the original price, and the authority calls the report "deeply flawed?" Billions are going to be spent building the cheapest and most remote section (Chowchilla to Bakersfield? Seriously?) without any hint of future funding to finish the line?

I love the authority's defense, essentially "Well, lots of other state programs are managed this way." Yes, we know. Some projects may indeed start without funding in place...but we're talking about TENS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS here. And thousands of jobs? When? In 20 years when (if) this thing actually manages to connect two cities people actually live in?

Yes, yes... Cali should definitely give that money back to the FRA to distribute to better performing routes.

If we can get as much from Cali turning down the money as we did from Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin the Cascades could be up to Acela speeds in a decade!

Combined with putting a US Customs Facility in Pacific Central Station (Vancouver BC), so no more having to disembark in Blaine, go through customs, then get back on to continue on, we're talking easy day trips to Vancouver!

Hell on Wheels, starring Muad Dib as Cullen Bohannon.

Yeah. Don't ever let any of that money go back to the people it was taken from. Spend it! Quick!

I would remind you that like most Urban states Washington puts into the pie much more than it takes out. So actually this IS giving back to those that paid.

Not really. It's giving back to the politically powerful PACs and special interest groups who benefit from the construction jobs and "cheap" transportation. I meant that it should be given back - directly - to the taxpayer so they could spend it on things they wanted without the interference.

Better yet, it should never have been taken from them in the first place.

Do you feel the same way about Highway Spending?

Highway spending, for the most part, is a done deal. We've got a lot of practice doing it so we know a lot about what it really costs. There's a huge infrastructure already and a ready customer base. This is completely different.

It's an apples versus oranges comparison.

Besides, it seems to me the immediate topic there was about what should be done with tax money that wasn't spent for the purpose for which it was raised. Giving money allocated to Florida, for instance, to someone on the other end of the country merely because Florida won't do things the way Washington demands is, by definition, using one person's money to punish them for "wrong thinking" on a subject.

Highway spending, for the most part, is a done deal. We've got a lot of practice doing it so we know a lot about what it really costs. There's a huge infrastructure already and a ready customer base. This is completely different.

It's an apples versus oranges comparison.[/quote]



So b/c it's given to HISTORICALLY 'politically powerful PACs and special interest groups who benefit from the construction jobs and "cheap" transportation' it's totally different huh?

Yes actually, I am arguing it should be spent on the purpose for which it was originally spent, HSR.

You are arguing it should be 'given back' to the taxpayer, which in reality means going back to general fund to be spent on other projects.

For the ARRA and HSR money, the money was given to the FRA to hand out. They did bids. If some of the states decide not to follow through on their bid, then that money goes back to the FRA to be divided up on the remaining bids.

No, back to the fucking taxpayers.

Will there be another Crédit Mobilier scandal?

So b/c it's given to HISTORICALLY 'politically powerful PACs and special interest groups who benefit from the construction jobs and "cheap" transportation' it's totally different huh?

[/quote]

It is funny how you (and others) rail against PACs and the corrupting influence of their money when it's something you don't like but when the logic is used against you, you laugh.

Welcome to the club.

In any case, the point being that money being spent on existing infrastructure with a proven record of cost determination cannot be compared to basically new technology (HSR) as you were trying to do.

If we were living in fat economic times, it wouldn't be an issue but we're not.

No. I'm arguing that it either be given back (a refund) or not taken from them at all.

Since stimulus spending has been shown to not work then leaving it with the consumer is most certainly more efficient at helping the economy.

I know the justification but the advocates of HSR (you, perhaps?) are certainly showing the true intent - punishment.

Conservatives just love to talk about being punished.

Just develop some STAR TREK type transporters and all transportation problems will vanish. Geez, how hard could this be under this administration? It falls right under the alternative energy shit. We got cell phones from STAR TREK, why not this? Trains, how out dated antiquated and easily derailed (terrorist attack) form of moving a few people around. If it wasn't for government subsidies, they wouldn't exist. I've ridden on trains, they suck!

You're post contains no logic, so laughing is the only proper response.

You do realize that the Cascades has been in operation since the 90s right? And that is just for the Eugene OR-Vancouver BC route. Amtrak's Coast Starlight has been running from LA to Seattle since 1971, and before that the Southern Pacific and Great Northern Railways had been running trains on that route since the first decade of the 20th Century.

This is only upgrading EXISTING ROW.

If you didn't, then you didn't read this thread as I have already laid that out earlier.

As for upgrading it to Acela speeds, well.. that's been done too. ON THE ACELA. The only Amtrak route to either turn a profit or break even depending on the accounting used. In the process it has captured over 1/3rd of the NEC market from the Airlines.

Which neither will happen so you are in effect arguing it should just go back into the regular fund.

Negative Ghostrider.

Infrastructure Stimulus has worked quite well. Unfortunately once you take out the tax cuts (over 40%) and the money sent to shore up state budgets, only a small amount of the stimulus actually went to infrastructure.

The stimulus bill’s spending on infrastructure may have been doomed to mediocrity from the start. First, and most important, a relatively small share of the bill was actually devoted to infrastructure. Mr Obama called the bill “the largest new investment in our nation’s infrastructure since Eisenhower built an interstate highway system in the 1950s.” But even on the broadest definition of the term, infrastructure got $150 billion, under a fifth of the total. Just $64 billion, or 8% of the total, went to roads, public transport, rail, bridges, aviation and wastewater systems.

http://www.economist.com/node/17311851

How is it punishment to use the funds like it was originally intended? If you and I make a deal that I'll pay you do something, and then you say you don't want to do that anymore, do you just get to keep the money? Or is it punishment if I go to the next guy on the list who says he'll do what I will pay him to do?

In fact it could be argued that unlike Florida, Wisconsin, or Cali'ss Rail Project the Cascades is even more deserving Federal Investment as not only does it cross state lines, but is international.

Dunno but if it gets built likely CSX will be the beneiciary.

There's plenty of that going around on both sides of the aisle, Mike.

Excellent - you have learned the lessons well, young skywalker...

You do realize that you're switching rapidly between the overall topic of HSR and the specific quite rapidly? It's easy to score gotcha points that way but it does nothing to advance the conversation.

No. I'm not. You can keep trying to say that's what I'm arguing but it's not.

Now, that's funny.

If the overall spending was too small to have a positive impact on the economy (since that's the statement I made, I'm going to stick with it) then a subset of that spending couldn't have boosted it either.

And... if typical infrastructure spending is as wasteful as typical HSR spending in CA has been repeatedly shown to be, then we certainly could find better ways to stimulate the economy.

So you're an advocate of the international over national? Hmmm. I bet you're an advocate of stimulating China's economy through our spending as well, then.

Feel free to add some logic to that line of thought and I will discuss it. Until then:

Negative Ghostrider.

Considering my first post in the this thread for weeks was about money hopefully going to the Cascades and I have continued in every post to stick to that, I don't see how you can say I was jumping around.

Try reading my posts.

Please give me an example when in recent memory the Federal Government has cancelled a project and the money allocated for it was sent as a check to the people as whole?

Too small to have MUCH of an effect.

And considering Cali has ONE HSR project how can you have a 'typical' Cali HRS project?

Are you saying that the Federal Government should be involved with Interstate and International Commerce more so than it is involved in Intrastate?!?!