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WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama called Thursday for the country to move swiftly to a system of high-speed rail travel, saying it will relieve congestion, help clean the air and save on energy.
Appearing with Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Obama said the country cannot afford not to invest in a major upgrade to rail travel. He said he understands it necessarily will be "a long-term project" but said the time to start is now.
The president allocated $8 billion in the enormous $787 billion economic stimulus spending package for a start on establishing high-speed rail corridors nationwide.
I just want it built. It really doesn't matter to me how it is built just as long as America gets a modern transportation system like the rest of the first world.
High speed rail is fine.
But we need to rebuild urban electric rail for mass transit.
Why?
232 million automobiles that rely upon imported oil for 70% of the time, means that in the event that oil imports are stopped, 70% of your mileage is gone - if you can still afford a car.
In 2007 consumption rates
1 million barrels of oil = one hour U.S. consumption
1 billion barrels of oil = one month U.S. consumption
1 trillion barrels of oil = one human lifetime ...
In one year, 12 billion barrels of oil are consumed. 70% of that is 8.4 billion.
At $50 / barrel, we export $420 Billion / year.
At $75 / barrel , we export $630 Billion / year.
At $100 / barrel, we export $840 Billion / year.
At $125 / barrel, we export $1050 Billion / year.
At what point does someone catch on that exporting billions and trillions per year is not wise. Is it not more cost effective spending the money, here, on electric rail based mass transit?
Estimated U.S. population: 305,604,913 (2009) At $125 / barrel, it costs $3435.80 per capita to satisfy demand.
That's $286 per month per person...
If we could take that same sum of $1050 billion, and use it to build electric urban rail, we might recover from our oil addiction.
At $10 million / mile at-grade track, with half that exported money, we could build ...
(1050 T / 2) divided by $10 M
52,500 miles of urban streetcar track.
(in 1907, the U.S. had 34,404 miles of urban streetcar track and approx. 60,000 streetcars.)
In two years, we exported enough wealth to build and equip our major and minor cities with electric urban rail transportation.
Don't ever say we can't afford rail mass transit. We can't afford NOT to build it. We can't afford to subsidize oil consuming automobiles, nor bail out "Big Auto".
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama called Thursday for the country to move swiftly to a system of high-speed rail travel, saying it will relieve congestion, help clean the air and save on energy.
Appearing with Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Obama said the country cannot afford not to invest in a major upgrade to rail travel. He said he understands it necessarily will be "a long-term project" but said the time to start is now.
The president allocated $8 billion in the enormous $787 billion economic stimulus spending package for a start on establishing high-speed rail corridors nationwide.
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama called Thursday for the country to move swiftly to a system of high-speed rail travel, saying it will relieve congestion, help clean the air and save on energy.
Appearing with Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Obama said the country cannot afford not to invest in a major upgrade to rail travel. He said he understands it necessarily will be "a long-term project" but said the time to start is now.
The president allocated $8 billion in the enormous $787 billion economic stimulus spending package for a start on establishing high-speed rail corridors nationwide.
Awesome. I agree with Obama wholeheartedly. Ever since I first visited Europe, I have been jealous of their high-speed train system...for so many reasons, both economical and environmental.
Where in the Constitution is the part where we are guaranteed government funded rail travel?
What are you talking about? Who said anything about government-funded rail travel being guaranteed in the Constitution?
Are you implying that a President cannot enact new measures to build high-speed rail lines unless such travel is guaranteed by the Constitution?
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