Poll: High-Speed Rail for $53b

[Yurt]

i would yes....but because of china? no...

 

[Yurt]

for those that say or voted it is a waste of money....do you think the highway expansion 60 years ago was a waste of money?

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Amtrak? The post office of the transportation business.

Watch, $53 billion will become $150 billion and Amtrak will be more broke than ever as some douche bag bureaucrats puts rail lines in from Ottumwa to El Paso to placate their constituents, then they realize nobody travels from Ottumwa to El Paso.

what would you do, because the rest of the world is passing us by, while people like you and willowtwat cry about Spending.

I wouldn't spend a gazillion dollars on high speed rail. HSR is a scam. If it were such a great idea, it would have been done. Amtrak stays in existence for the benefit of a few major corridors and is heavily subsidized by those who have no need for it for the benefit of those that do. Hey, if the ticket actually costs $250, not $25, then make them pay $250.

Here a couple suggestions: build some new fucking power plants and drill for oil, you know, like the rest of the World is doing.

 

[The Joe]

Amtrak? The post office of the transportation business.

Watch, $53 billion will become $150 billion and Amtrak will be more broke than ever as some douche bag bureaucrats puts rail lines in from Ottumwa to El Paso to placate their constituents, then they realize nobody travels from Ottumwa to El Paso.

what would you do, because the rest of the world is passing us by, while people like you and willowtwat cry about Spending.

The rest of the world is also passing us by in killing Christians and mutilating woman.. Should we catch up with those as well?

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

The problem that all advocates of high speed rail have is they are like the Germans invading Russia, they look at a map and have no clue just how far you are talking about. High speed rail is incredibly expensive, in all aspects. Land to build it on, the rails themselves, the trains and yes the electricity to run them. I see high speed rail linking key cities in the East some day and maybe Los Angeles and Seattle in the distant future. But coast to coast? Highly doubtful. I just see this as a nice opportunity to engage in some graft and corruption.

How much was the Big Dig supposed to cost? How much di it cost in the end?

That's the problem folks.

I don't think it would get the ridership

I take the Acela between New York and Boston and New York and DC. Both routes see high ridership but are on the fringe of the tradeoff between time and conenience. If you have a choice between a flight to Chicago taking two hours and a high speed train taking six, you will take the plane

Took an Amtrak from NYC to DC, by the time I traveled to Penn Station from Staten Island, caught the train, stopped in 85 towns.... I was exhausted and never did it again.

 

[dilloduck]

I wonder if GE would be willing to help with the project ?

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

I wonder if GE would be willing to help with the project ?

They'll be up their eyeballs in the project.

 

[dilloduck]

I wonder if GE would be willing to help with the project ?

They'll be up their eyeballs in the project.

ya think ? shocker

 

[The Infidel]

Electricity

The transmission lines can't handle it.

What transmission lines?? The ones from the new nuke plants?? After the DC whores moved 14,000 factories overseas, there is plenty of electric capacity for HSR trains.

The ones that would make this VERY cost prohibitive.
It were a good idea and would be cost effective, we would have already done it OR a private company would have already did it.

Our current railraod system is developed with freight in mind, not moving people.

We would have to put a whole new set of rails down on top of it all.

Why do you think Amtrak does'nt do better than it does.

A toy train is a fun idea, but not a good alternative at the moment.

 

[Political Junky]

I took the TGV from Paris to Avignon, about 360miles as the crow flies, in less than 3 hours. Take into consideration no ride to and from the airport in each city, no waiting in lines, I'll take the train every time.
That would make the ride from NYC to Chicago between four and five hours.
Of course the TGV is faster than the Acela.

 

[kyzr]

The problem that all advocates of high speed rail have is they are like the Germans invading Russia, they look at a map and have no clue just how far you are talking about. High speed rail is incredibly expensive, in all aspects. Land to build it on, the rails themselves, the trains and yes the electricity to run them. I see high speed rail linking key cities in the East some day and maybe Los Angeles and Seattle in the distant future. But coast to coast? Highly doubtful. I just see this as a nice opportunity to engage in some graft and corruption.

How much was the Big Dig supposed to cost? How much di it cost in the end?

That's the problem folks.

I don't think it would get the ridership

I take the Acela between New York and Boston and New York and DC. Both routes see high ridership but are on the fringe of the tradeoff between time and conenience. If you have a choice between a flight to Chicago taking two hours and a high speed train taking six, you will take the plane

Took an Amtrak from NYC to DC, by the time I traveled to Penn Station from Staten Island, caught the train, stopped in 85 towns.... I was exhausted and never did it again.

The problem you need to solve is the future price of gas/energy.

At $3/gal we drive, at $5/gal or $10/gal then what? I'm not sure if we can all drive a Prius or Volt, or if HSR and telecommuting would work, or what we could do in 30 or 50 years when the cost of gas is prohibitive.
Nuclear power, or Breeder Reactors, or some new fuel-cell technology may get us to work. But going city to city will be an adventure if we don't get HSR and public transportation right. These systems take decades to develop, and we need to start soon before we hit the energy wall.

 

[Political Junky]

The problem that all advocates of high speed rail have is they are like the Germans invading Russia, they look at a map and have no clue just how far you are talking about. High speed rail is incredibly expensive, in all aspects. Land to build it on, the rails themselves, the trains and yes the electricity to run them. I see high speed rail linking key cities in the East some day and maybe Los Angeles and Seattle in the distant future. But coast to coast? Highly doubtful. I just see this as a nice opportunity to engage in some graft and corruption.

How much was the Big Dig supposed to cost? How much di it cost in the end?

That's the problem folks.

I don't think it would get the ridership

I take the Acela between New York and Boston and New York and DC. Both routes see high ridership but are on the fringe of the tradeoff between time and conenience. If you have a choice between a flight to Chicago taking two hours and a high speed train taking six, you will take the plane

Took an Amtrak from NYC to DC, by the time I traveled to Penn Station from Staten Island, caught the train, stopped in 85 towns.... I was exhausted and never did it again.

That's why so few people take Amtrak. It's outdated, slow, and yields to freight trains.
High Speed Rail is a pleasure.

 

[JamesInFlorida]

I think high-speed rail would be a great investment in the long term for the US. The interstate highway system was one of the best investments this country ever made-period. I'm against needless spending, landing us on Mars for example, or all the foreign aid we give other countries/and the UN being out of control. But high-speed rail would be excellent for our country in the long term.

 

[westwall]

The Interstate Highway system seemed like the way to go in 1950's. While we were building our highway system, Europe was extending their rail to cover just about every town and village on the continent.

Now we have a deteriorating highway system that's terribly inadequate and we can't afford to maintain it. In many of our major cities, traffic on Interstates creeps along at 30mph. The cost of getting to work is becoming a major financial problem. In Europe, rail is faster than ever. It's economical, comfortable, and almost pollution free. I was traveling through Europe a few years ago. Rail travel there is so much faster, nicer and cheaper than battling the freeways here. I will probably never see it, but I hope some day we might have such a system

Our interstates can be built a lot better. Think autobahn here, they are much better constructed then are our highways. Once again though, you look at a map and ignore the simple fact that Germany is smaller than the state of Texas, by a long way. Europe, all of it is smaller than the continental US. Coast to coast will allmost certainly ALLWAYS be cheaper and much more efficient by air.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

What does high speed rail run on?

Electricity

The transmission lines can't handle it.

​

 

[Political Junky]

 

[Rozman]

Labor costs alone will probably kill the project.Once the unions get in on this the costs will skyrocket.

It's nice to dream though.

We seem to be more interested in building sports arenas and stadiums.Been driving the same roads all my life and most of the improvements are cosmetic.

 

[Ragnar]

Reason.tv: 3 Reasons Obama's High-Speed Rail Will Go Nowhere Fast - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

1. The lowball costs. CNN estimates that delivering on the plan could cost well over $500 billion and take decades to build, all while failing to cover much of the country at all. Internationally, only two high-speed rail lines have recouped their capital costs and all depend on huge subsidies to stay in operation.

2. The supposed benefits. "We're gonna be taking cars off of congested highways and reducing carbon emissions," says Vice President Joe Biden, an ardent rail booster. But most traffic jams are urban, not inter-city, so high-speed rail between metro areas will have no effect on your daily commute. And when construction costs are factored in, high-speed rail "may yield only marginal net greenhouse gas reductions," say UC-Berkeley researchers.

3. The delusional Amtrak example. Obama and Biden look to Amtrak as precedent, but since its founding in 1971, the nation's passenger rail system has sucked up almost $35 billion in subsidies and, says The Washington Post's Robert J. Samuelson, "a typical trip is subsidized by about $50." About 140 million Americans shlep to work every day, while Amtrak carries just 78,000 passengers. There's no reason to think that high-speed rail will pump up those numbers, though there's every reason to believe its costs will grow and grow.

 

[rightwinger]

I don't think it would get the ridership

I take the Acela between New York and Boston and New York and DC. Both routes see high ridership but are on the fringe of the tradeoff between time and conenience. If you have a choice between a flight to Chicago taking two hours and a high speed train taking six, you will take the plane

Took an Amtrak from NYC to DC, by the time I traveled to Penn Station from Staten Island, caught the train, stopped in 85 towns.... I was exhausted and never did it again.

The problem you need to solve is the future price of gas/energy.

At $3/gal we drive, at $5/gal or $10/gal then what? I'm not sure if we can all drive a Prius or Volt, or if HSR and telecommuting would work, or what we could do in 30 or 50 years when the cost of gas is prohibitive.
Nuclear power, or Breeder Reactors, or some new fuel-cell technology may get us to work. But going city to city will be an adventure if we don't get HSR and public transportation right. These systems take decades to develop, and we need to start soon before we hit the energy wall.

If you have the wife and three kids it is still cheaper to drive. Even at $10 a gallon

 

[Flopper]

The Interstate Highway system seemed like the way to go in 1950's. While we were building our highway system, Europe was extending their rail to cover just about every town and village on the continent.

Now we have a deteriorating highway system that's terribly inadequate and we can't afford to maintain it. In many of our major cities, traffic on Interstates creeps along at 30mph. The cost of getting to work is becoming a major financial problem. In Europe, rail is faster than ever. It's economical, comfortable, and almost pollution free. I was traveling through Europe a few years ago. Rail travel there is so much faster, nicer and cheaper than battling the freeways here. I will probably never see it, but I hope some day we might have such a system

Our interstates can be built a lot better. Think autobahn here, they are much better constructed then are our highways. Once again though, you look at a map and ignore the simple fact that Germany is smaller than the state of Texas, by a long way. Europe, all of it is smaller than the continental US. Coast to coast will allmost certainly ALLWAYS be cheaper and much more efficient by air.

I don't think we will every replace our highway system, however I think we should be looking at supplemented it. Because of the cost of building a transportation system, we need to be looking into the distant future. We have no way of knowing just how high gas prices will rise before we replace gasoline with another energy source, but it's a pretty good bet that we will see $5/gal before long and probably $10/gal with 10 years or so. We know just about everything is getting faster, our communications, our computers, our manufacturing; that is just about everything except our transportation. If anything it's getting slower. As we move into the 21st century we need to get products to market faster. We need to spend less time commuting. Currently we spend about 150 billion hours a year commuting and it's increasing.