Cincinnati-Indianapolis-Chicago high speed rail (Wilson: living in, most dangerous, moving to)

[SWOH]

Originally Posted by Wilson513

You're kidding right?

Putting aside the $15,000,000 to $50,000,000 per mile to construct the rail, the $10,000,000 per car to buy them. They will only move 900 folks at a time along the line. The interval would be something like 3 hour intervals for midwest rail. To Indy and Columbus. It wouldn't put a dent in I-71 traffic. You wouldn't even notice the difference.

Building rail costs more because the economies of scale aren't there to produce rail more cheaply and effectively. If there were more demand for rail lines, more companies would enter the market and drive down construction costs. Simple as that, really.

Look at how many resources it takes to build a highway, and how many it takes to build a rail line. Any idiot can tell you railroads take up less space and use less resources overall.

[WILWRadio]

This might be a better way to start. If there is sufficient interest and use in this concept then light rail and eventually high speed rail might work.

CTfastrak - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

West Busway - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[RustBeltOptimist]

Originally Posted by Wilson513

You're kidding right?

Putting aside the $15,000,000 to $50,000,000 per mile to construct the rail, the $10,000,000 per car to buy them. They will only move 900 folks at a time along the line. The interval would be something like 3 hour intervals for midwest rail. To Indy and Columbus. It wouldn't put a dent in I-71 traffic. You wouldn't even notice the difference.

If you put aside the initial investment, rail is a no brainer in any moderate sized city. Again, if it wasn't, the very basic economic fact is that we'd have multiple cities shutting down their rail lines, even a few, but again, that's not happening... anywhere.., not a single city.., and it doesn't matter what size the cities are either, apparently. Once the track is laid and the cars are bought, rail is clearly worth having. To me the proof is in the pudding. If people who don't have a product say that it's terrible and not worth my money, but then I see that people who actually have the product can't get enough of it and are buying more rather than getting rid of what they do have, who am I supposed to believe? The argument against it entirely depends on whether that initial cost hurdle can be met, and in a city that's as cash strapped as Cincinnati, I think really do think this is a decent argument. I just don't think you have anything substantial to back up that rail is bad after that investment gets made.

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

Light rail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The True Cost Of High Speed Rail For The U.S. Is More Than $500 Billion - Business Insider

The Cato Institute is heavily funded by oil interests and generally comes out in favor of anything that prevents people from having options besides automobiles, so this isn't surprising that they'd have a highly skewed study about high speed rail that doesn't really tell us anything. The statistics of improving efficiency of course fall into a illogical trap that current trends are fixed into the future. You could come up with all sorts of silly conclusions this way, such as projecting that Austin will be larger than NYC by the end of the century:

Austin's Population Will Surpass New York By 2100 (A Cautionary Tale About The Dangers Of Trend Analysis) - urbanSCALE.com

[WILWRadio]

Just where is the money going to come from to fund this on a yearly basis? Higher taxes? Inflation is terrible right now and wages are stagnant. People cannot afford to have more money come out of their wallets to fund expensive toys that will service only a fraction of the population. Bus service at least covers a large area of a city while rail service only reaches select suburbs and neighborhoods.

I propose that a fund raising project be started by the communities that want this service. Private individuals and companies as well as the suburbs that want to raise taxes should fund it. Put the Rail idea to a vote in every community to find out if the majority want public money to fund a new rail service. In other words, the people that want it should pay for it and fund it. Those that don't want it should be exempt.

Indianapolis recently shot down the concept of light rail because they found it is not financially feasible at this time. Lack of population density was a major reason. Dust Belt since you live in Indy you should have heard about this.

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by RustBeltOptimist

The Cato Institute is heavily funded by oil interests and generally comes out in favor of anything that prevents people from having options besides automobiles, so this isn't surprising that they'd have a highly skewed study about high speed rail that doesn't really tell us anything.

You do know that trains use a lot of oil, right? Or, are you thinking that an 800,000 pound commuter rail goes down the road on solar energy? And, I doubt the Kochs have any car companies in their portfolio.

[RustBeltOptimist]

Originally Posted by Wilson513

You're kidding right?

Putting aside the $15,000,000 to $50,000,000 per mile to construct the rail, the $10,000,000 per car to buy them. They will only move 900 folks at a time along the line. The interval would be something like 3 hour intervals for midwest rail. To Indy and Columbus. It wouldn't put a dent in I-71 traffic. You wouldn't even notice the difference.

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

Light rail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The True Cost Of High Speed Rail For The U.S. Is More Than $500 Billion - Business Insider

Originally Posted by Wilson513

You do know that trains use a lot of oil, right? Or, are you thinking that an 800,000 pound commuter rail goes down the road on solar energy? And, I doubt the Kochs have any car companies in their portfolio.

Yes, as I said before as much for each passenger as though they were riding a motorcycle on average. It's still a lot less oil than a freeway full of cars, SUV's, pick-ups, etc...

Reading that Cato study again is actually sort of funny in hindsight. The author saw failures in every existing transit line in the country except San Diego, and six years on, not a single one of them is scaling back. Some of the lines he was most critical of (Denver, Dallas) have turned out to be the most successful. His ability to recognize terrible economics is also evident in his article "Debunking Portland" which he cited in the transit "study" where he explained in 2007 why exactly Portland's planning was bound to fail. How long are we supposed to wait for that?

But of course the article's not biased or anything, the author just at various points calls train riders "snobs" and equates supporting trains with supporting racial apartheid, in fact making up a term "transit apartheid" to suggest exactly that. Sounds like a pretty civil and balanced study to me.

[unusualfire]

Commuter rails are usually electrical. There is some lines, like the Nashville or Albuquerque-Santa Fe that uses Diesel. That of course is oil based. I'm not sure what the new Line in Orlando uses.

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by unusualfire

Commuter rails are usually electrical. There is some lines, like the Nashville or Albuquerque-Santa Fe that uses Diesel. That of course is oil based. I'm not sure what the new Line in Orlando uses.

And, the electricity comes from . . . .? Bueller? Anyone?

[unusualfire]

Coal-nuclear-natural gas.

[Wilson513]

Electrified rails are not really in the mix though are they?