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For all you China lovers the reason they threw their high speed rail together so fast is very simple. The Chinese government doesn't have to worry about things like the pesky EPA, lawyers, property rights or any of that type of nonsense. They say the rail is going here, bulldoze everything in the way and drive on. Apparently this is the model many want to follow. Fact is ridership is down because the damn tickets cost too much in China for many to use. Maybe we should just wait and see how the communist experiment works out before we jump in like we have with the global warming fiasco. Well of course it's all proven a fail in Europe and we continue on. I guess left handers can't learn from mistakes especially when they're spending others money.
Which is why high speed rail corridors are concentrated in regions with high population density (Northeast, SoCal, Texas triangle, etc...). There's no such planning for a *connected* rail network that traverses the entire country.
In 2010 Amtrak carried more than 28.7 million passengers, the largest annual total in Amtrak’s history. An average of more than 78,000 passengers ride more than 300 Amtrak trains per day.
Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) is the busiest railroad in North America, with more than 2,200 trains operating over some portion of the Washington-Boston route each day. More than a quarter of a million riders use the NEC on every weekday, generating more than 4.9 million daily passenger miles.
If included among U.S. airlines in 2008, Amtrak would rank 8th in the number of passengers served. On average, there are nearly twice as many passengers on an Amtrak train than there are on a domestic airline flight.
The Boston-New York-Washington portion of the Northeast Corridor carried 10,375,209 passengers in 2010 on Acela Express, Regional Service or other trains. Three other corridors had ridership that topped one million or more: Pacific Surfliner Service (San Diego-Los Angeles-San Luis Obispo, 2,613,604), Capitol Corridor Service (San Jose-Oakland-Sacramento-Auburn, 1,580,619) and the Keystone Corridor Service (Harrisburg-Philadelphia-New York City, 1,296,838).
Infrastructure and transportation needs don't cease to exist because we're in debt. A better question would be; Do you want to invest in the critical infrastructure needs of the U.S. or nation-build another country?
The United States has poured $53 billion into Iraqi infrastructure over the past six years, building ports, rail lines, schools, hospitals, water-treatment facilities, and government buildings in an attempt to rebuild the physical as well as political structures of civil society.
We spent $3 billion PER DAY! to stay in Iraq.
Reuters reports that Iraq will next month invite foreign firms to submit bids for the planned construction of a $6 billion port south of Basra, which together with a new rail system will create a regional transport conduit to rival the Suez Canal. Iraq is also seeking investors to build 8,000 km (4,970 miles) of new rail line, including a $3 billion railway network around Baghdad.
French engineering giant Alstom has signed a preliminary $10 billion deal to build a high-speed rail line linking Basra and Baghdad in Iraq. Alstom recently signed another preliminary deal to build an elevated rail line in Baghdad.
Let's not forget all the Iraqi construction workers we're putting to work or the Kuwaiti company in charge of construction at our "absolutely necessary" $1.3 billion Iraq embassy.
Your argument is that it cost money to keep up roads. Do you think if some trillion dollars of high speed rail is run that the roads will not be kept up anymore? How much will it cost to keep the trains running at 150MPH? Will you volunteer your property to run this train through or somebody elses? I'm sure I know the answer to that.
Why are you bringing up Iraq? You think troops are free when they're not in Iraq? Food is free when the're not in Iraq? Fule, training, bullets etc. etc. etc. to keep a fighting force is free when they're not in Iraq? Who cares what Iraq does. You say they are seeking investors. Good for them. Let em invest. Why don't you go seek some investors in the US instead of spending more tax dollars we don't have on something that has FAIL written all over it? Oh I know Mr. Kotter because it's FREE MONEY to the HSR'ers.
"“It’s unbelievable these states would send back $400 million and $800 million in free money,” Pracht said. “It’s mind-boggling.”
What is mind boggling is these morons thing this money is FREE!!!
Unfreakinbelievable.
Good, you read the article, did you see the part that two private sector projects worth $195 million were lost when kasick return than $400 million? An immediate 50% return on investment before one shovelful was turned. How much else was lost? How many companies crossed the Three-C's off their list of possible new homes because of the loss of the rail line?
When you invest, there are multiple levels of return on that investment. New economic activity feeds off that investment and that stimulates the economy and generates new tax dollars.
Look at the world without paved roads, where would we be without the roads we now take for granted? 20, 30 or 40 years from now we will need these rail lines more than now, but buying the right of way and designing the mainlines needs to be done sooner or later, cheap fossil fuels won't last forever. In the future the social costs will just be greater and required land more costly.
So that is what you want to go back to unpaved roads. Maybe ride horsies? Paved roads were a necessity for economic expansion. HSR would be a luxury we can't afford at this time. Your last post you touted the rail system in the east coast corrider. Where is the need to change it?
Why will we need these rail lines 20 years from now? If using the one in Cali is the model then that one won't even be built and if it is the cost will be up around a trillion for just that ONE.
Don't go on with the fossil fuel argument not lasting forever. You think it will all dry up in fifty years. They just keep finding more somehow. HSR runs on coal right now unless you want to tack on the cost of setting up wind farms all over the nation to run the dam things too. Required land more costly. Hell if you folks get your way it won't cost anything the government will just take it like China when they decide to do what they deem necessary.
If the private sector was responsible for the creation of the paved roads, very few would have been built, mostly following existing rail lines, as those would be the only ones that would make a large enough profit for the private sector. Major population areas would be paved, but the rest.........
Most suburbs would never have been developed and most people wouldn't have a need for automobile, since where you worked and lived, would be in close proximity..
Developers in the suburbs do pay for their roads.......
Good, you read the article, did you see the part that two private sector projects worth $195 million were lost when kasick return than $400 million?
So 400 million in "free" money was gonna be used to load up the pockets of an investor? Yep that is the good old boy network at work. Happens around my little town all the time. Take the farmland, start a development then get your buddies on the council to have taxpayers run the water and electricity etc. out to it then make a fortune. No wonder the "investor" is upset. LOL. I guess he should have donate more money to the gov's campaign???
$3.20? That is about the price of a gallon of regular grade gasoline right now. At 25 mpg, it would take about 210 miles before you pay your "fair share" ($3.20) for using a public highway. So, how did you figure out that to be the cost? How much profits have public highways turned in? Do we have numbers? Or, we never cared for it?
Actualy I just threw that number out there as I dont work in the winter besides snowplowing.
During my work season I use about 130 gallons of fuel a week. So for 8 months a yr I spend $52 a week on road use taxes.
Again hwys dont have to turn profits , but they should also be self sufficiant. A city dude who dosnt own a vehicle should not have to pay for a hwy.
Excess money is spent on the military for little in the way of financial return. Investment in rail infrastructure will be short term pain for long term gain, but it would create many jobs in the short term. In the future, it would also break dependence on foreign oil and reduce air travel, which isn't the most environmentally friendly or efficient means of getting from A to B, unless you're talking distances of roughly over 1,000 miles.
Modem trains are electric powered, cars and planes are not. Get back to me when you've ridden the TGV. It's a great way to travel.
You WILL care one day if oil becomes even more expensive and harder to come by. Your ignorance and short sightedness will come back to bite you and others who proclaim that "this is the USA...we are right, the rest of the world can go to hell".
So does this electricity just magicly appear, or is it produced by burning fossil fuels?
Is 150mph even high-speed? I think if one decides to invest so much money, it should be really high speed, like 250mph or faster.
Imagine the first wreck rolling along at 200MPH. The same government who touted building these things because of the "speed" will step in and regulate all trains will now travel at 65 mph to reduce the risk of crashes and of course all passengers forced to wear a seatbelt and the insanity will march right on.
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I think if one decides to invest so much money, it should be really high speed, like 250mph or faster.
