Cincinnati-Indianapolis-Chicago high speed rail (Columbus, Wilson: to move, build, pay)

[progmac]

Originally Posted by JR_C

How do you know? Maybe most of the population doesn't care how they get around, and would use alternate forms of transportation if adequate forms existed, but only use the car by necessity?

It's an argument not worth responding to. It's like saying that people love Duke Energy, because if they didn't, well heck, they would just live without power.

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by JR_C

How do you know? Maybe most of the population doesn't care how they get around, and would use alternate forms of transportation if adequate forms existed, but only use the car by necessity?

Well, there are 910 cars for every 1000 people in Ohio: men, women, children, infants, and wheelchair bound, incarcerated, hospitalized and incompetent. So i suppose that indicates that people like to own cars.

Where I live, we have excellent bus service. No one uses it.

[h Steve]

Originally Posted by Wilson513

Sadly, the Highway Trust Fund has become a piggy bank for every cockamamie project from streetcars to green energy scams. A recent blogger summed it up:

People who claim the highway users are subsidized by funds needed in excess of the Highway Trust Fund are simply misinformed.

And Washington likes to hold that money over the States head when it wants certain laws changed.

[WILWRadio]

People that want rail should move to an area that has it and can support it. Why try to force into an area that can't sustain it at this time? I would think that a rail line from Detroit to Ann Arbor to Toledo and on to South Bend to Chicago and possibly Milwaukee would stand a far better chance at working than the Cincy to Chicago deal.

This country has serious financial problems. The fact that they can't even come up with the 2.5 billion needed to fund the Skip Spence Bridge without Tolls is proof of that. The total national debt right now is something like 16 to 17 trillion dollars. The value of the country's entire infrastructure and total wealth in the form of capital of any sort is only about 15 trillion. Foreign countries are dumping the dollar as their backup currency. And still other countries like China and Russia are dumping their US bonds back to Us! Until the debt is paid down there ain't no way anything of this nature can be funded either at the national or state level.

The bottom line is simple. We need to live within our means. Spending without thinking about the consequences further on down the road is the road to ruin and is destroying the country.

[kjbrill]

Originally Posted by unusualfire

Not feasible? If it's not feasible now it will never be. 20 year from now $20 billion. 50 years from now $50 billion. 100 years from now $100 billion.

Everything you denote is purely inflation, haven't ever seen it change in my lifetime and doubt if it ever will, especially with the politicos running everything. If the train lords would have hung on to what they had, guess what all of these discussions would be mute. But look back, they didn't. So now the rest of us are expected to make up for their huge loses?

[SWOH]

Does anyone know how much it would cost to build the Eisenhower Interstate System in today's dollars?

I feel like that's the only number that can put these arguments to a rest.

[WILWRadio]

Originally Posted by SWOH

Does anyone know how much it would cost to build the Eisenhower Interstate System in today's dollars?

I feel like that's the only number that can put these arguments to a rest.

Non sequitur. We have to deal with the here and now. We are stuck with the highway system and cars and don't have the money to quit cold turkey. Until the debt rung up by the Fed and States and for that matter at local levels is reduced considerably we are NOT in a position to go on any more spending sprees of this nature. It would mean making drastic cuts to existing departments and programs that could seriously damage the economy or even put people out in the street. Or raising taxes in an economy where inflation is running rampant and the money drain on people's wallets is destroying their standard of living.

HSR is NOT a necessity. Cars and buses are in this society.

He'll, wish I could go out and spend 5 grand on a new stereo system right now. But I can't because the money is not there. Have to make do with a few hundred for a pair of speakers and a few hundred for the new CD player and cables and leave it at that.

[kjbrill]

Hey, but so many people don't think that way. They want some grandoise rail system to be built, who cares who pays for it.

[Wilson513]

I think KJ has hit on it. It is a self centered, ego driven, sense of pride to have a big public works project paid for by other people. It is grandiosity.

[WILWRadio]

They also fail to realize this is not 1883. Horse and Buggy is not the preferred method of transport by private individuals and trains are not the most effective form of mass transit even in small towns scattered around the country. But hell, why let the facts get in the way of their "feelings and illogical "desires" on the subject.