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I pay about $35 a week in road use taxes. I dont have a problem doing so as I use roads. High speed rail is something I would never use and it would just be added to the list of things I dont use and am forced to pay for.
Ya want high speed rail , pull a bond and pay for it with ticket sales.
User fees and gas taxes only cover about 20% of the cost to maintain roads and none of the cost to actually construct roads. Sorry, but user fees do not pay for roads as 80% of maintenance costs and 100% of original construction costs come from general government funds.
Building high-speed trains will obviously create jobs. But they have potential to do even more. Say a high speed train gets built in rural Iowa. These folks would be able to commute to Chicago or St. Louis to work for a fraction of the time it would take to drive.
During previous recessions, people would pack up and move to cities with job growth. Now, due to the dismal housing market, people are less likely to move away.
These high-speed trains can change the way we think about commuting. They can let people in rural areas compete for jobs in the city.
Building high-speed trains will obviously create jobs. But they have potential to do even more. Say a high speed train gets built in rural Iowa. These folks would be able to commute to Chicago or St. Louis to work for a fraction of the time it would take to drive.
During previous recessions, people would pack up and move to cities with job growth. Now, due to the dismal housing market, people are less likely to move away.
These high-speed trains can change the way we think about commuting. They can let people in rural areas compete for jobs in the city.
Perfect so long as private industry creates it, sells, it and profits from it.
The private sector cannot possibly do it. They do not have the power of eminent domain. Adding rail will violently shift real estate values in and around the rail system. Not only will this distort the ability to acquire land, but there will be no way for a private sector to recover this values with taxation.
Funny how cars, which use public roads, are considered an entirely private affair. Cars are a heavily subsidized industry from public funds.
User fees and gas taxes only cover about 20% of the cost to maintain roads and none of the cost to actually construct roads. Sorry, but user fees do not pay for roads as 80% of maintenance costs and 100% of original construction costs come from general government funds.
In fact, it works so well that we don't need high speed rail.
Just because some critics were wrong once doesn't mean all critics are wrong all the time.
As long as you don't mind being forced to use a car...
Quote:
Originally Posted by waterboy7375
I dont have a problem with that.
Well, since that has a snowball's chance in hell of happening anytime in the foreseeable future, lets expand our focus on building/improving transportation infrastructure that doesn't require an automobile to use. (I don't happen to care all that much about "high speed" rail; any additional rail would do.)
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