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I'm an avid cyclist and commute by bike when possible but this debacle of a train needs to die. Just the logistics alone for how many people a day can use it is so far off. It's like offering private choppers for govt employees. Only a certain number of people can and will use it. It will not make any dent in the number of vehicles and commute times.
If you're looking for a way to pay for something progressive and necessary you can find the money if you look for it. Here's a good example of using a part of that $1.5 Trillion for the rail system in CA and elsewhere.
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The Trump plan now before the U.S. Senate cuts taxes by a net $1.5 trillion, most of which goes to millionaires and multinational corporations.
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The budget passed by Congress to facilitate President Trump’s tax cuts slashes $1.8 trillion from Medicaid, Medicare and other health services. This will deny health care to the elderly, children and people with disabilities. But Trump and his congressional backers think it would be better to spend $1.5 trillion on a corporate tax-rate cut.
The $800-billion cut slated for education, job training and housing programs—among a vast array of other domestic services — will lead to more dropouts, unemployed and homeless. But Trump and his allies would rather use that money (roughly $597 billion worth) to reward real estate tycoons like President Trump and other wealthy business owners with a cut in the top tax rate paid by so-called “pass-through” entities. (When you hear right-wingers calling this a “small-business tax cut,” add it to the list of untruths above).
Liberals love trains. Someone tells them when to get on, when they'll get somewhere, where they can get off, and someone else paying most of the fare. They don't have to think for themselves because government will do it for them.
I'll tell you what, you go enjoy your "thinking for yourself" or whatever in your car, and I'll go be told what to do and get across the city in 1/6 the time.
I like trains. I take Regional Rail when I can. However, passenger trains can never make sense economically, so they are heavily subsidized by the taxpayer, often due to bloated, public sector union salaries, benefits, and PENSION obligations.
And the agency or organization who predicted the cost and delivery date still has a job and suffers no consequence. You get the feel all infrastructure projects are lowballed to silence the taxpayers. Actually lowball estimates would be welcome instead of the exponential actual costs and delivery time.
Booker and Schumer were worried trump would halt the new tunnel form Nj to NYC. We can only hope he does. Too bad CA has fallen victim to democrat control and their panacea to every problem, 'light rail' or 'high speed rail'. With regular trains leaving the track what chance does high speed rail have in the US.
What is the cost of doing nothing and continuing to avoid mass transit. I’m not saying the cost is reasonable but to continue to do nothing in California and other states is complete madness. Compared to transportation in Europe we are the equivalent of cave men.
We need to get people out of cars where it makes sense, there are so many congested areas around the country, our attitude needs to change.
Caloformia isn't "avoiding" mass transit; the last thirty years have seen expansion of subways, commuter services (BART, CaTrain and Metrolink), new Amtrak services, and light rail. The problems lie with the over-hyped "big Lionel set" that Uncle Moonbeam promised to his Snowflake nephews and nieces.
And regardless of the fate of HSR, there is a useful purpose for that new stretch of flat, straight, well-engineered roadbed in the Central Valley. As has been pointed out in pevious discussion, California is one of the foremost examples of the strained capacity of the state's two major rail freight systems, which are forced by nature to share track in several locations. It's not much, but it represents a partial recovery of a misguided ivestment. The possible emergence of a "super freight railroad" (first of its kind in the world) can't be completely dismissed.
On the opposite coast, Amtrak has been slowly, but steadily develping a successfull passenger service in an area where alternatives are diminishing. It would cost at least as much as the California system to upgrade it to the satus envisioned by the HSR dream merchants, but it serves a useful purpose, and contines to make slow, but real progress. One of these days, however, the bill for neglected maintenance on some key bottlenecks such as the North (Hudson) River Tunnels is going to mke itself felt.
My personal guess is that the tied-down "safety valves" within the failed experiment that is the Peoples' Democratic State of California wil cause the entire state to collapse not much later (or sooner) than the same fate will overcome the Tinkertoy Choo-Choo. The only question is how much can be recovered when the task finally falls into the hands of thise with a greater sense of pragmatism -- and true entrepreneurship.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 03-09-2018 at 11:05 PM..
Instead of a grandiose scheme to build a new high speed rail line between LA and SF, I would redesign, double track and electrify the line between LA and San Diego to accommodate speeds up to a max of 120 MPH. Ridership would greatly increase if that happened taking a lot of cars off the I-5.
What is the cost of doing nothing and continuing to avoid mass transit. I’m not saying the cost is reasonable but to continue to do nothing in California and other states is complete madness. Compared to transportation in Europe we are the equivalent of cave men.
We need to get people out of cars where it makes sense, there are so many congested areas around the country, our attitude needs to change.
I agree with you, more people need to use public transit so I can use the roadways that will be less congested.
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