Any updates on the potential Columbus-Chicago high speed rail connection? (Cleveland: neighborhood, depreciation)

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by PerryMason614

I don't want to live in a city. I like the suburbs. It seems to me that I pay plenty in taxes every year that a road shouldn't be too much to ask for.

So the people who want rail don't pay enough taxes to have what they want subsidized by the government? Sounds pretty selfish, actually. And it's clearly not financially responsible to build that way. So that eliminates the financial cost argument against rail, doesn't it.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by candle16

Yes the investment return rate on building roads in a subdivision of 50 homes is low compare to say mass transit in the city.

Now multiply that by the tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands) of subdivisions in the US. Or all hundreds of thousands of miles of rural roads that barely receive any traffic... and you begin to get an idea of why road infrastructure is crumbling.

[Mplsite]

Add to that the fact that motorists currently don't even cover half of the costs to build and maintain these roads. Yet that doesn't stop them from getting new expensive highway interchanges out in the exurbs and rural areas where there is low usage due to low spread out populations which will never come close to paying off for such infrastructure. It gets built anyway: no vote, no special public meetings, no endless "studies"; it just gets done.

[PerryMason614]

Originally Posted by Mplsite

Add to that the fact that motorists currently don't even cover half of the costs to build and maintain these roads. Yet that doesn't stop them from getting new expensive highway interchanges out in the exurbs and rural areas where there is low usage due to low spread out populations which will never come close to paying off for such infrastructure. It gets built anyway: no vote, no special public meetings, no endless "studies"; it just gets done.

Who cares? Some of the old Roman roads are still in use today. What we build today will likely be relevant for 2000 years.

But not your leftist choo-choo. Nobody wants to be crammed like sardines into a government train with a bunch of smelly, stinky poor people. Period, end of discussion.

[2nd trick op]

Not much is likely to happen for quite a while. If the Midwest gets a High Speed Rail network, it will take on a hub-and-spoke pattern centered on Chicago. Illinois is working on a modest (110 MPH top speed) Chicago-St Louis service, but only the portion going as far as Springfield gets top priority (I wonder if politics might have something to do with that? )

Michigan is also working on a Chicago-Detroit project (again-top speed of 110 MPH, because beyond that, the price tag gets bigger.) That one would have Ann Arbor as its principal anchor, loop through Detroit with one stop in the city. and terminate in one of the northern suburbs.

Wisconsin was working toward a Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison service at one point, but that has been scuttled; retaining the plans at least as far as Milwaukee might have made sense, since the population density and traffic potential were there.

California's San Diego-Los Angeles-Bay Area-Sacramento project, which actually got under way last winter, bears the most watching, because it actually involves a lot of new right-of-way, and in the flat Central Valley where the speeds can be substantially improved. But there remains a little problem of actually finding a way through the San Gabriel Mountains into the L. A. Basin. Sooner or later, I expect Warren Buffet's Burlington Northern Santa Fe to get involved in this, in return for a parallel freight tunnel. (It currently has to use trackage rights on rival Union Pacific), but the issue will likely take a lot of time to resolve; I suspect a ten-year minimum.

Chicago-Columbus is a thorny issue in part because it's not certain how much Indiana would cooperate, or which cities (Indianapolis almost surely, but via Gary, or via Lafayette?) As with California, the land is flat, and there are any number of previously-graded and abandoned rights-of-way upon which to build. The service might be extended to Pittsburgh -- if the Pennsylvania politicians tossed in some horse-trades that extended Jersey DOT's well-established service to Allentown and Scranton (Pennsylvania has been described as Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh -- surrounded by Alabama.)

Over the very long run -- longer than most of us will be around, urban congestion, rising petroleum prices, and an aging population will make rail travel more attractive. But don't hold your breath. It's not fair to compare American plans with those in Asia or Europe, because those lines could be built almost "from scratch", and the American ethic of personal vehicle ownership and mobility was discouraged by high taxes on gasoline in most other societies.

[1watertiger]

US High Speed Rail Map

[1watertiger]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High...United_States#

[candle16]

I wonder the truck driver that crashed at the I-70 I-270 on the west side few weeks ago, does his company insurance help cover the cost to fix the highway, or chance are the taxpayers basically eat it up?

[Zen_master]

Originally Posted by candle16

I wonder the truck driver that crashed at the I-70 I-270 on the west side few weeks ago, does his company insurance help cover the cost to fix the highway, or chance are the taxpayers basically eat it up?

Can't speak to that incident specifically, but let's say a motorist crashes into a signal box at your typical suburban intersection - such as at Sawmill & 161 - the city most likely will bring out a mobile unit or rent one and pay to fix the infrastructure from reserves and then pursue reimbursement from the motorist's insurance (assuming they were insured) on the back end. Insurance collection could take several months or not happen at all if the motorist is uninsured - so yes, in many instances the tax payer is on the hook at least in the short run while they float the motorist an interest-free loan to fund repairs and attempt to collect on the back end.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by PerryMason614

Who cares? Some of the old Roman roads are still in use today. What we build today will likely be relevant for 2000 years.

But not your leftist choo-choo. Nobody wants to be crammed like sardines into a government train with a bunch of smelly, stinky poor people. Period, end of discussion.

So you've never ridden on any actual passenger rail, have you. I think you're confusing the 1970s Queens, NY subway with modern rail and it's pretty silly.

And I love the unabashed classism you promote.