High-Speed Rail? Over My Dead Body!

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/06/govs-rail-jobs/

We're broke. We can't afford progressive liberal lefty Euro wannabe pipe dreams. You want high speed rail go to Europe. In fact since Europe has everything American progressives desire so much why not immigrate to there and leave those of us who like America alone.

Yeah, I stopped reading right there.

The "left" is no better than the right when it comes to partisan rhetoric. Until "they" realize that, there's no sense having any sort of discussion. Everybody is tilting at windmills until that day.

Wow, so they made a promise while campaigning and hours after they were elected announced they were going to follow through with their promise?

Those GOP/Tea Party bastards are ruining it for all the real politicians! What's next Gitmo will close? Don't ask don't tell will be repealed? US troops will be coming home?

Where will this madness end?

Apologies.

This is a straight copy & paste.

So you quoted, formatted, linked, came up with a thread title, and started a thread without even reading the first sentence.

Was it the "GOP" in the headline that caught your eye? A love for trains?

the trains... his UAW bros just lost a contract for engines.

Deal.

The Left is not the only problem here. I tried this same discussion last week and and was told unequivocally that the Right will not compromise because they're right and the Left is wrong. Period.


As far as the trains go, fuck 'em. Put the high speed rail somewhere else. Who the fuck wants to go to Wisconsin anydamnways?

When will this madness end?

High speed rail is a useless waste of dollars in the US with the exception of the mid eastern board. Maybe an argument could be made for Chicago/St. Louis and a few runs in Cali. The rest is a huge waste of money.

no. not really.

Really. Air travel and distance make high speed rail impractical over much if the US. Potential numbers of users also make that a fact.

Here's the punchline - the rest of the story is that according to the new leftie jerk to become Gov of NY (another Cuomo), NY should get that money because it's already earmarked and NY needs more gubmint money for rail.

As if Amtrak doesn't say all we need to know about train routes not supported by enough traffic to make it a profitable use of capital, so they force taxpayers to unwillingly fund it.

Train travel is eversomuchmore affordable than plane travel. The only downfall is the length of time it takes to get from Chicago to San Francisco - currently about 2 and a half days, whereas a plane trip is 4 or 6 hours.

If a train can get from Chicago to San Francisco in 4 to 6 hours for a quarter the price ...

A number of errors are why your post is inaccurate.

1) the cost of rail travel is rarely significantly less that air travel except on the Mid East Coast run. On top of that, high speed rail fares would be even higher due to the cost of building the rails in the first place. Ultra high speed rail could not use ANY existing infrastructure.
2) a train will NEVER be able to get from Chicago to Cali in 6 hours. At 250 mph (the highest if high speed rail) it would still take 10 to 12 hours with no stops and a straight run. Add security, boarding, stops and other times to that and you get 15 hours. No one will do that.
3) if it was viable private industry would invest and build it. It would not require tax dollars. Anything that has to be funded primarily through tax dollars that will be used by private industry is not viable. Amtrack is a great example of this.

High speed rail doesn't have nearly that speed capability. Still, 10-12 hours, at half the cost, under travel conditions much better suited for getting work done or resting in transit, and where you go directly from downtown to downtown rather than needing extra travel time to get to and from the outskirts where the airports are would be nice.

Still, that's not the kind of project high-speed rail is best suited for. HSR really shines in perhaps the 100-500 mile city-to-city range. That's where it's a significant improvement over slower rail and where, because rail hubs are more centrally located than airports, total travel time really is competitive with, or even better than, air travel. HSR also requires a certain degree of traffic to be worth the cost, and a Chicago/San Fran routes just wouldn't cut the mustard. On the other hand, if you could make a once or twice a week commute between Buffalo and New York City an easy trip you'd get packed trains and a whole lot of good for Buffalo's economy.

This would be an epic failure on so many levels. Just a couple.
1) To spend billions for a train that runs 4 times a week is not economical or fiscally viable.
2) Your primary traget traveller, the business traveller cannot abide a twice a week schedule. By setting it up thus, you assure that the business traveller will never use it. Again you would have a financial bomb on your hands.

High speed rail is stupid in areas of low population density.

Now, the northeast corridor, that could use some high speed rail.

I would personally LOVE a bullet train between Newark NJ, Raleigh NC and Clemson SC. If I didn't have to go thru the fucking airports to visit my family, I'd be a happy camper.

So yeah, go ahead and build that route just for me. Screw the rest.

That's exactly what's wrong. People see the benefit just for themselves and say, "screw everybody else". Turns out, that's just what happens. Everybody gets screwed.

Somebody, somewhere along the line has to say that enough is enough and this isn't the job of the government. In fact, what government should be doing is getting out of the way of private business doing this sort of thing where it's truly needed and developing better alternatives (telecommuting, alternative work schedules, whole new industries, ad infinitum).

God bless the tea partiers and real conservatives and more power (or should I really say, "LESS") to them

If there's anything 24 years on this earth has taught me, its that everyone is for budget cuts until it comes to their little piece of the pie.

I'm eager to see what piece of the pie it is for tea partiers.

I think it is great to see a politician following through on a campaign promise.

Who the hell wants to visit Cleveland anyway?

I like air travel just fine, but it does get expensive.

I'd rather see changes to the airline industry over trying to build an entirely new transportation system from the ground up.

Bullet trains make sense in Europe and Japan because of the shorter distances involved.

Nearly everyone in the US has a car and if I needed to get from Chicago to Detroit or Detroit to Cleveland, I'd just drive there myself.

Call me when they balance the budget, slash medicare, kill social security, end our two foreign occupations, and slash the [-]offense[/-] defense budget.

I'm tired of applauding politicians for cutting out $1 billion here or there when we have 3 items on our budget taking up over $1 trillion dollars that gets untouched.

You are expecting a lot from the Governor of Wisconsin I think.

I've been around longer than that and that's very true. That's why I've been saying this whole election cycle that I was tired of hearing from the Republicans about how they were eager to go "clean up" when they certainly didn't do much of lasting note on that subject even back to the days of Reagan. I'm glad to see the energy going to those who'd push hard in that direction, though, and when and if they quit, I'll drop them as well as move to the next group that pushes for the "right" stuff.

That experience also has taught me that the more liberal side of American politics never even gives lip service to fiscal discipline so I have even less patience for them.

About 20 years ago, there was a plan to build a high speed rail system in a "triangle" that would run between Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin and back to Dallas.

It never came to pass. I wish it would've.

I read the article, I'm just not editing it. Stop jumping to conclusions.

The Interstate Highway system.

Freight applications are the real gem of this, the passenger system is just an added bonus.