Comments

You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

Home Front: Politix

Boondoggle: U.S. unveils $53 billion in high-speed rail plan

2011-02-08

The U.S. government will dedicate $53 billion over six years to build new high-speed rail networks and make existing ones faster, Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday.
The private industry couldn't figure out how to get it to make money, so I guess the government will have to step in.
The initiative will allow the Department of Transportation to choose corridors for the new projects and increase U.S. use of the passenger rails, the White House said in a statement.
Thereby cementing its future for the time being.
President Barack Obama's budget for fiscal year 2012, which is to be unveiled next week, includes $8 billion for the plan. The rest of the money will be allocated over the six-year time period.
So I guess what they mean to say is $24B over the next 12 years. Present value, of course. Oh, and did you include the price of subsidies to keep ridership at reasonable levels?
Obama has said he wants to target investments in areas such as infrastructure while reducing spending to tackle the budget deficit.
Silly voter, don't you know that you can't save money if you aren't spending it?
"As President Obama said in his State of the Union, there are key places where we cannot afford to sacrifice as a nation -- one of which is infrastructure," Biden said in a statement.
Roads. Water. Sewer. Energy. Aren't there already enough opportunities to buy votes and redistribute wealth to friends and cronies? Sure, you will find people to ride this train. But you won't find enough people to ride it at the prices you will need to charge to fund it. Politicians for the next two or three generations will have to come up with creative ways to funnel money to it before it is condemned and has to be "rebuilt".

High speed rail is a mantra for liberals. It's the cure-all for our transportation ills, whatever those are.

Actually I thought we had high-speed 'rail' already, in the sense of cheap, reliable city to city transit -- we have Southwest Airlines.

It's cheaper to buy planes and build an airport than to buy trains and build rail. And, if you're wrong in your market analysis for transit between two cities, it's easy to reuse planes on another route. Whereas with rail, you're stuck.

High speed rail is precisely what's wrong with our liberal citizens these days. It's a cure in search of a problem. It's a boondoggle. It's foolishness, and it's going to spend a lot of money we need elsewhere.

I can't for the life of me figure why piston engine airliners haven't made a comeback since they're so much more fuel efficient than jets.

Posted by:gorb

#15 Hear You Go

Federal Railroad Administration: On April 29, 2009, the United States Senate confirmed the nomination of Joe Szabo to become the new FRA Administrator ... he most recently served as Illinois (the Chicago way again) state legislative director for the United Transportation Union (UTU). An informal swearing-in ceremony is expected to be held on May 5 to enable Szabo to begin work immediately with an official ceremony to be scheduled at a future date.

*union cronyism*

Posted by: Pancho Thrineque7774 2011-02-08 22:53

#14 Union leaching.

Posted by: Pancho Thrineque7774 2011-02-08 22:43

#13 There might be more to this than meets the eye. There are some behind the scenes things going on.

1) Almost all the railroad tracks in the western US are owned by Union Pacific, and they guard their right of way like a ticked off mama wolverine.

2) To get right of way elsewhere was almost impossible until W. Bush quietly signed an executive order wiping out a huge amount of legal impediments for transportation projects.

3) There has long been plans for high speed cargo transport in some of the major flat long hauls in the West, often as part of the American part of the Plan Puebla Panama, though the Texans through a huge lug wrench into that scheme.

Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-02-08 20:00

#12 I thought California was planning and trying to complete a short run (something like 6 miles) high speed rail for several years that could not be completed because of all the environmental and regulatory groups.

Is this correct or am I getting daffy with age? Please don't answer the latter part of the question.

Posted by: JohnQC 2011-02-08 19:02

#11 They'll need a nice model...

Posted by: tu3031 2011-02-08 18:58

#10 Planes.

Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-02-08 18:58

#9 High Speed Non rail = plaes.

The market has already solved this problem.

Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-02-08 18:58

#8 High Speed Rail is only worth it if the stops are far between. Otherwise I will drive and have my vehicle see the country and people, or fly and get there without the swing sway of HST turns.

The rails must be relatively straight to accomodate the speed. Same with elevation. Sounds like fun in the urban areas, speeding up slowing down all the time to make turns yet meet promise of best transportation idea ever.

It might work big metro to big metro only in between the mountain ranges, aka tornado ally, but half the year the weather would not allow full speed and sometime no travel at all. Lets do KC-Denver, people love to go skiing, sports rivaly, shopping, both cities have room to work with so neither city has to demolish much in-place structure. Follow I-70, makes since, flat as a pancake as the study said. If an hour at each airport train has to beat $180 4 hours one way at 600 miles equals 150mph average speed, that can be done.

So ya gotta build and maintain a track which can handle temperatures from 30 below to 120 above, at least. Have to protect it from livestock and wildlife, snow drifts, tumbleweeds, prairie fire, dust storms, softball hail. Train must be able to withstand constant 40mph crosswind with gusts to 70mph. SuperCells and twisters are common in that area during spring, early part of fall, but can happen any time and can develop so quickly that even with today's equipment they can catch meteorologists unaware. Thats just here, ya got hurricanes, nor'easters, lake effect, huge temperature fluctuations, mountains

Someone throw a route out there, to me much shorter I'm driving or taking a regular train, much longer I'm flying. Amarillo/Albequerque perhaps?

Would be better off laying cargo rail to transport goods to and from ports, factories, stores, farms much more efficiently to remove trucks from the road to save wear on highways and traffic congestion. But that would bind the Teamsters huh.

Posted by: swksvolFF 2011-02-08 18:33

#7 Why don't we just build Zepplins? Surely with composites we can build on that goes 90mph the base speed for high speed rail. If we are going to have a boondoogle it might as well be a really neat one.

Posted by: Joger Oppressor of the Lichtensteiners9577 2011-02-08 18:13

#6 "Boondoggles. There's a lot of money in boondoggles..." W.C.Fields

Posted by: Muggsy Glink 2011-02-08 18:03

#5 Seattle has a Monorail - runs for about a mile or so from Westlake Center to Seattle Center.

There was an initiative to expand it throughout the city called the Seattle Monorail Project. After several years, many studies and a rather large Tax it was killed and the remaining taxes reallocated (some say illegally) to Metro Busses.

They spent millions and didn't lay down a single yard of concrete.

Posted by: CrazyFool 2011-02-08 17:38

#4 "What you folks need is a monorail!"

Posted by: Secret Master 2011-02-08 17:09

#3 Tell ya what. Cut the subsidies on Amtrak and tell me if it is still in operation in 3 years. If so, then let's talk about a high speed line. Otherwise, fuck off.

Posted by: DarthVader 2011-02-08 16:33

#2 I would support a multi-billion $ plan to build nuclear reactors on military bases, but this high-speed rail plan is CRAP.

Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-02-08 15:54

#1 Union jobs to build it, union jobs to operate it, union jobs to subsidize it. What else do you need to know?

Posted by: NoMoreBS 2011-02-08 15:21

00:00