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View Poll Results: Should we build the HSR network
Yes 192 60.57%
No 125 39.43%
Voters: 317. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 01-08-2015, 07:26 PM
 
8,061 posts, read 4,872,728 times
Reputation: 2460

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Quote:
Originally Posted by brienzi View Post
Sounds great, but the liberals would ultimately be against as it may disrupt the elk population, or a spotted salamander somewhere through it's path...
Much like the oil pipeline from Canada that the the current regime rejected...and i quote..

Obama was putting politics ahead of jobs and the nation's energy security by rejecting the pipeline now, Republicans and oil industry leaders said. The president faced fierce pressure from environmentalists who said they would be less likely to campaign for him in November if he didn't block the project to move carbon-heavy oil from the tar sands of northwest Canada.

Another 4 years..Damn
Amtrak is been supported by the Tax Payers for years. Why does any think this rail will be successful.??

 
Old 01-08-2015, 08:10 PM
 
35,309 posts, read 52,154,689 times
Reputation: 30999
If there was any money to me made on this high speed rail venture private enterprise would already be in on it.If the government builds these high speed rail lines expect them to be a colossal waste of tax payer dollars as people stick to their cars.
 
Old 01-08-2015, 08:23 PM
 
32,009 posts, read 36,668,783 times
Reputation: 13274
You lose the edge when you quit doing things. That's where technological advances, confidence and an able workforce are grown. If we keep sitting around while the Chinese forge ahead we will regret it.
 
Old 01-08-2015, 08:27 PM
 
Location: SF Bay Area
12,287 posts, read 9,797,822 times
Reputation: 6509
Quote:
Originally Posted by arjay57 View Post
You lose the edge when you quit doing things. That's where technological advances, confidence and an able workforce are grown. If we keep sitting around while the Chinese forge ahead we will regret it.
Sounds like a great reason to further **** away our children's future with momentous debt because we don't want to lose our edge by not doing stuff.

Sometimes I just want to bang my head against the wall.
 
Old 01-08-2015, 08:27 PM
 
45,137 posts, read 26,317,877 times
Reputation: 24872
High speed rail, right up there with sports stadiums as wastes of taxpayer money.
 
Old 01-08-2015, 08:42 PM
 
Location: Portland, Oregon
46,001 posts, read 35,097,852 times
Reputation: 7875
Quote:
Originally Posted by GHOSTRIDER AZ View Post
Amtrak is been supported by the Tax Payers for years. Why does any think this rail will be successful.??
Amtrak currently runs mostly on private freight tracks that they have to pay to use and have to stop for freight trains. This causes serious delays often times and makes it harder to run on a set schedule.

Not having its own system of rails and running at slower speeds actually hurts rail service, thus the current state of Amtrak is a waste of money.

Personally I have no problem with a public/private partnership where we build the rails for high speed and allow other companies to operate the trains.
 
Old 01-08-2015, 09:08 PM
 
Location: Old Mother Idaho
29,198 posts, read 22,263,933 times
Reputation: 23827
I'm for it, but i really don't like the map very much, because it leaves the most of 5 states without a useful rail route, and Wyoming and S. Dakota with no rail at all. In the 5, the proposed routes don't even go throughout the major population centers of Idaho, Montana and eastern Oregon. (and possibly others.) Tennessee gets a line, but it doesn't serve any cities in the state.

As a start, it's good, but unless there is a proposal to actually connect the largest city areas of every state in the nation, as the map is now, the system will always cost us more than it pays us back, and that' something that needs to be considered from the very first.
Unless every train is well filled, a lot of money is going to be wasted. The distances in the western states are vast; a traveller in Boise, for example, isn't going to take the train if he has to drive 400 miles to Coeur d'Alene by car first, just to catch it.

if high speed rail is to be a true alternative to air travel and the highways, the routes need to have stops at all the larger cities nationwide. Building new routes is going to be expensive in the west and some other areas, but it is a necessity to creating a system that will both pay for itself and serves us all in the best way.

70 years ago, there was no population center in the nation that wasn't served by rail. I realize many of the old routes are gone forever, long torn up and plowed under, but they still exist on old maps. I'm sure new alternates could be drawn from those maps, and I'm sure some of the routes still exist but are very under used.

Fast on-land transportation of people and goods is the most efficient way to move both in fuel costs, and a modern passenger system makes traveling a decent experience in comparison to the airborne cattle cars we climb into now. Land travel is also less prone to shutting down when the weather is bad, and almost all of us have been trapped in an air terminal by weather delays these days.

High speed rail is needed, but it must be designed to serve the people, not the convenience of the rail companies, from the first.
 
Old 01-08-2015, 09:14 PM
 
Location: Just outside of McDonough, Georgia
1,057 posts, read 1,127,433 times
Reputation: 1335
In certain corridors, high-speed rail has a good chance at being successful (think the BosWash corridor, California, the Great Lakes, and Florida). On a national scale, I'm sorry, but there would have to be a dramatic cultural change for it to truly succeed. When gas prices hit European levels, airplane costs become prohibitively expensive for most Americans, and/or the entire Interstate network is tolled, then Americans would probably flock in droves to high-speed rail. Until then, I can't see a national high-speed rail network being much of a success.

I'd rather see us focus on building and expanding public transit networks in our cities and metropolitan areas for now.

- skbl17
 
Old 01-08-2015, 09:27 PM
 
Location: Portland, Oregon
46,001 posts, read 35,097,852 times
Reputation: 7875
Quote:
Originally Posted by skbl17 View Post
In certain corridors, high-speed rail has a good chance at being successful (think the BosWash corridor, California, the Great Lakes, and Florida). On a national scale, I'm sorry, but there would have to be a dramatic cultural change for it to truly succeed. When gas prices hit European levels, airplane costs become prohibitively expensive for most Americans, and/or the entire Interstate network is tolled, then Americans would probably flock in droves to high-speed rail. Until then, I can't see a national high-speed rail network being much of a success.

I'd rather see us focus on building and expanding public transit networks in our cities and metropolitan areas for now.

- skbl17
I agree, I think high speed rail would work on a more regional level than it would on a national level. It is always going to be much easier to take a plane from the west coast to east coast, but on a regional level it would be much more effective, especially in corridors that have heavy car traffic already.
 
Old 01-08-2015, 10:07 PM
 
Location: Pacific NW
9,437 posts, read 7,350,101 times
Reputation: 7979
Quote:
Originally Posted by skbl17 View Post
In certain corridors, high-speed rail has a good chance at being successful (think the BosWash corridor, California, the Great Lakes, and Florida). On a national scale, I'm sorry, but there would have to be a dramatic cultural change for it to truly succeed. When gas prices hit European levels, airplane costs become prohibitively expensive for most Americans, and/or the entire Interstate network is tolled, then Americans would probably flock in droves to high-speed rail. Until then, I can't see a national high-speed rail network being much of a success.

I'd rather see us focus on building and expanding public transit networks in our cities and metropolitan areas for now.

- skbl17
Gas prices are only high in Europe because the politicians tax the crap out of it. If US politicians tried that they wouldn't get re-elected so it won't happen.
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