Poll: High-Speed Rail for $53b

[rdean]

If we're going to emulate them, we should focus on nuclear power plants (in the private sector).

I can recall when they sought to emulate us.


"The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building."
- Benito Mussolini

Reagan, Bush and Bush fixed that problem.

 

[rdean]

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.

Actually, HST are much more fuel efficient. Considering the congestion at airports and the cost of fuel, HST's are competitive. Not only that, they open local business to a larger number of competitive workers. You could commute two hundred miles if it only took an hour to get to work. You would never fly every day.

 

[SgtMeowenstein]

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?

While I love the fact that you have the Trailer Park Boys as your avatar - Let's go, two smokes - you are wrong on this subject. High speed rail is essential to ke-ep up with the growing needs of commuters in the US.

 

[The Joe]

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?

While I love the fact that you have the Trailer Park Boys as your avatar - Let's go, two smokes - you are wrong on this subject. High speed rail is essential to ke-ep up with the growing needs of commuters in the US.

Name one need we need to keep up with. Also, how far away from work do you live? 500 miles?

 

[Mad Scientist]

I'm sure there are plenty of businesses out there that are losing customers because there isn't a high speed rail going right by their stores.

50 billion will just be wasted.

 

[Sallow]

I'm sure there are plenty of businesses out there that are losing customers because there isn't a high speed rail going right by their stores.

50 billion will just be wasted.

Pretty sure it's quite the opposite. Train stations generally grow towns.

 

[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.

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.

This is true which is why flex work and telework are much better alternatives to building multi hundred billion dollar transport systems. The very notion of making all workers travel to the office is simply madness for the most part. If you are in a field where your primary product is paper, that can be done from a home office.

 

[uscitizen]

What does high speed rail run on?

Electricity

The transmission lines can't handle it.

Umm they have to put up ones over the track. Duhhh.

I thnk we need more light rail transport first.
We need light rail systems down the center median of a lot of our interstate highways.

We will have to buy our HS rail trains from Seimens( german?) I expect

 

[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.

Actually, HST are much more fuel efficient. Considering the congestion at airports and the cost of fuel, HST's are competitive. Not only that, they open local business to a larger number of competitive workers. You could commute two hundred miles if it only took an hour to get to work. You would never fly every day.

Why commute at all? Teleworking from your home office is cheaper, more sustainable and betters work/life balance. Most workers will actually accept less pay to work from home. Unless you are in manufacturing there is little need to commute to an office anymore.

 

[elvis]

I like the idea of high-speed rail. But I don't like the idea of spending another $53 billion we don't have.

 

[westwall]

I'm sure there are plenty of businesses out there that are losing customers because there isn't a high speed rail going right by their stores.

50 billion will just be wasted.

Pretty sure it's quite the opposite. Train stations generally grow towns.

Only when there is freight involved. Take the freight out of he equation and you don't need to grow anything. HST are cute but if you really are serious about making the life of the average American better get them off the damn roads period. There is very little need for workers to leave their home office anymore. Telework and flex work are the way of the future.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Obama proposed a new initiative to develop a new HSR system for $53b

Obama to call for $53B for high-speed rail - Yahoo! News

I personally believe that an HSR system is essential to the long-term health of the US economy. When the cost of gas exceeds $5/gallon and transportation costs become prohibitive, HSR will be the mode of choice.

I support the initiative, especially when China has a brand new 300 mph HSR system
China smashes high-speed rail record with 300MPH unmodified train run | Gadling.com

So lets vote. IMHO this is like the interstate expressway system only better. I'm hoping it gets some of those big rigs off the roads. We need to start planning transportation 20, 30, even 50 years out so we don't get caught in a bad depression in the coming years.

Freight....Trains carry most of the freight now as it is. Trucks bring the goods to market. That's the way it is and that is the most efficient method...Unless of course our president has it in his head that every business will have it's own rail siding..
Passenger..Yep HSR is a wonderful concept. In Europe is works to a certain extent. However, passengers must still get from HSR stations to their destinations.
Trillions of dollars in land acquisitions must be made, track laid, stations built, infrastructure created from scratch. Remember with HRS their can be NO sharing of tracks with other types of rail systems. Grade crossings cannot be used so all HSR would have to be elevated or built underneath existing roads.
The cost of building such a system is so large that it is unimaginable.
Then there is the time needed to build the system. Then where is the return on investment. Users of the HSR could never pay their share of the cost to carry them, so the fares for train travel would have to be subsidized. And who will get stuck with that? Why private vehicle users of course. The federal gas tax would have to be raised to those levels seen in Europe. Where driver's pay the equivalent of 4 or 5 dollars per gallon in taxes alone. That can only create a negative effect on our economy. The travel and tourism industry would implode. The Recreational Vehicle industry would become nonexistent. Air Travel ( cost of fuel) would become unaffordable for 80% of the population. Of course these are just my guesses, but the fact is that while Obama's idea of an HSR system is an idea, it is also unrealistic. $50 billion wouldn't cover the first 100 miles of track....How can I state that? Simple..The City of Charlotte, NC built a 10 mile "light rail" system.....The cost.....$1 billion .....That's with a B!!!!!. BTW, that light rail system gets decent ridership numbers but it is bleeding money.....

 

[Sallow]

I'm sure there are plenty of businesses out there that are losing customers because there isn't a high speed rail going right by their stores.

50 billion will just be wasted.

Pretty sure it's quite the opposite. Train stations generally grow towns.

Only when there is freight involved. Take the freight out of he equation and you don't need to grow anything. HST are cute but if you really are serious about making the life of the average American better get them off the damn roads period. There is very little need for workers to leave their home office anymore. Telework and flex work are the way of the future.

Don't think so. Most train stations I've been to are buzzing with activity. There are restaurants, newspaper stands, and all sorts of other stores. Having a guaranteed, safe, fast and efficient way to travel to and from work also expands ones options when it comes to chosing where to live. Heck, I've even heard some arguments that towns lose their "charm" because a train station grows their population. The whole "telework" and "flex" work thing is okay for techies but not so much for plumbers.

 

[uscitizen]

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.

Actually, HST are much more fuel efficient. Considering the congestion at airports and the cost of fuel, HST's are competitive. Not only that, they open local business to a larger number of competitive workers. You could commute two hundred miles if it only took an hour to get to work. You would never fly every day.

Why commute at all? Teleworking from your home office is cheaper, more sustainable and betters work/life balance. Most workers will actually accept less pay to work from home. Unless you are in manufacturing there is little need to commute to an office anymore.

Kinda hard to telecommute if your employer does not offer it.
Most do not.

I know I telecommuted for about 10 years. And considered myself VERY fortunate. only about 3% of my employers employees were allowed to telecommute.
And I worked for a MAJOR corporation.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Awesome. About time.

Feel free to pay for it yourself.
I support any government run program as long as it is funded solely by the USERS of said program.
So,if you want trains, YOU pay for them.

 

[Sallow]

Awesome. About time.

Feel free to pay for it yourself.
I support any government run program as long as it is funded solely by the USERS of said program.
So,if you want trains, YOU pay for them.

Another one for line item tax returns.

 

[westwall]

Actually, HST are much more fuel efficient. Considering the congestion at airports and the cost of fuel, HST's are competitive. Not only that, they open local business to a larger number of competitive workers. You could commute two hundred miles if it only took an hour to get to work. You would never fly every day.

Why commute at all? Teleworking from your home office is cheaper, more sustainable and betters work/life balance. Most workers will actually accept less pay to work from home. Unless you are in manufacturing there is little need to commute to an office anymore.

Kinda hard to telecommute if your employer does not offer it.
Most do not.

I know I telecommuted for about 10 years. And considered myself VERY fortunate. only about 3% of my employers employees were allowed to telecommute.
And I worked for a MAJOR corporation.

And that needs to change. If you actually wanted to see a Federal law have a positive impact on workers lives have one that mandates corporations must allow 40-50% of the work force to telework. Obviously this only works with companies who's primary product is paper, but surprisingly that is a hell of a lot of companies.

 

[westwall]

Pretty sure it's quite the opposite. Train stations generally grow towns.

Only when there is freight involved. Take the freight out of he equation and you don't need to grow anything. HST are cute but if you really are serious about making the life of the average American better get them off the damn roads period. There is very little need for workers to leave their home office anymore. Telework and flex work are the way of the future.

Don't think so. Most train stations I've been to are buzzing with activity. There are restaurants, newspaper stands, and all sorts of other stores. Having a guaranteed, safe, fast and efficient way to travel to and from work also expands ones options when it comes to chosing where to live. Heck, I've even heard some arguments that towns lose their "charm" because a train station grows their population. The whole "telework" and "flex" work thing is okay for techies but not so much for plumbers.

That only grows the train station, not the surrounding area. Service jobs don't create enough wealth to generate the kind of growth you are thinking of, that requires manufacuring or some other form of major industry.

 

[Synthaholic]

If we're going to emulate them, we should focus on nuclear power plants (in the private sector).

I can recall when they sought to emulate us.


"The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building."
- Benito Mussolini

Yup. I don't hate the French like these NeoCons do, but I certainly do not want to look to Paris for anything other than food, wine, and art. We should be leading the world in rail technology.

I think a solar heated steam engine using powerful mirrors/lenses is a future possibility for non-high speed trains. Google has even gotten involved, thank goodness:

Google: We're Going into the Solar Mirror Business

*snip*

The company's engineers have been focused on solar thermal technology, in which the sun's energy is used to heat up a substance that produces steam to turn a turbine. Mirrors focus the sun's rays on the heated substance.

Weihl said Google is looking to cut the cost of making heliostats, the fields of mirrors that have to track the sun, by at least a factor of two, "ideally a factor of three or four."

"Typically what we're seeing is $2.50 to $4 a watt (for) capital cost," Weihl said. "So a 250 megawatt installation would be $600 million to a $1 billion. It's a lot of money."

That works out to 12 to 18 cents a kilowatt hour.

Google hopes to have a viable technology to show internally in a couple of months, Weihl said. It will need to do accelerated testing to show the impact of decades of wear on the new mirrors in desert conditions.

"We're not there yet," he said. "I'm very hopeful we will have mirrors that are cheaper than what companies in the space are using..."

Another technology that Google is working on is gas turbines that would run on solar power rather than natural gas, an idea that has the potential of further cutting the cost of electricity, Weihl said.

"In two to three years we could be demonstrating a significant scale pilot system that would generate a lot of power and would be clearly mass manufacturable at a cost that would give us a levelized cost of electricity that would be in the 5 cents or sub 5 cents a kilowatt hour range," Weihl said.


*snip*
​

 

[Synthaholic]

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.

best answer in the thread.

No, WillowTree. Most moronic.

How come all you teabaggers don't know that the Post Office is in the Constitution? And that the Post Office MUST deliver to everyone, no matter how inconvenient or non-profitable it is.

Big difference from FED-EX, who can say "Deering, Alaska??? Fuck 'em!" if it doesn't turn a profit.