Why Do Conservatives oppose High Speed Rail?

Yes, BEHIND California and New York. I don't know what fantasy land you live in where New Yorkers are fleeing to Florida for economic prosperity.

Let me spell it out for you. SNOW BIRDS. I'm in Florida right now for Christmas visiting my father. Half the cars down here have New York / New Jersey / Connecticut / Ontario / Quebec / Pennsylvania plates. SNOW BIRDS. Let it marinate.

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I've got a serious problem with you (*)(*)(*)(*)ting up every thread you get in with your idiotic anti-democratic posts.

HSR sucks because the dems are behind it. New York is trash because the dems run it. Blacks are impoverished because of the dems. The dems are causing this. The dems are causing that. Go find another thread to trash.

 

Toll roads are bankrupt. They are mostly subsidized by their states now.

Why would Obama run an airline? They are private entities that need government help to stay afloat.

 

Right because cost means NOTHING when you are traveling for business.... (hint.. profit?)

 

New York City rebounded...because a Republican ran it. Feel a little better now? You are the one who started in with the BS about how all the places formerly run by the Democrats until about 30 years ago are behind the places the republicans ran until 30 years ago and trying to use that as proof that you had a good idea. I jumped in and said "were all these states in that position when the Dems left? Are they all rising now?" Is the NE stagnating? Remember this? It was like a page or two back I think. Dont start no (*)(*)(*)(*) there wont be no (*)(*)(*)(*).

Dont make partisan arguments you cant win and I wont beat you over the head with stats. Now get out of my state if you dont love it. Snowbirds nothing, they dont register their income in this state. These are people who have moved permanently, and not retirees either. Their income wouldnt count for much.

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Because of unionization. All unionized industries need protections and bail outs.

What toll roads specifically are bankrupt? Isnt that better then a bankrupt HSR that the taxpayers keep bailing out? Besides, toll roads only get half of the money they are due, they lose out on gas taxes usually.

 

And you still get on your partisan CRAP. It is the ideology, not the political party. Liberalism stems from education. Education leads to higher income professions. Maybe you haven't made the correlation yet, but all the major universities and innovations are coming out of Liberal Northeastern states, or Liberal California. Incomes follow the educated population. Millenials aren't graduating and rushing to start their new lives in Florida.. they are going to NYC, Chicago, SF, Boston, DC. Cry about it.

No one pays attention to your stuff because you bring the same stupid irrelevant nonsense into every thread and lose. Run along now and focus on a real argument against HSR.

They moved permanently because of RETIREMENT. What part of Snowbird do you not understand?!?!?! People don't spend their elderly years in a winter hellhole that is New York.

The worlds oldest superhighway, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, is eternally BANKRUPT.

Most of the other toll roads post operational deficits. NY Thruway was 100 million in the hole last year. They refuse to raise toll rates.

 

The New Jersey Turnpike, despite posting a nice profit, received Federal funding for its upgrades (widening and I-95 / PA Turnpike interchange). So much for being privatized.

Infrastructure is to SERVICE the economy, not make and sit on profits.

 

Going to blame those roads on "conservative" ideology?

So, because the right is for educational freedom and equality of opportunity through vouchers, are they the liberals and the left the conservatives?

Education is improving greatly in the South. It is stagnating in the North. Republicans were around during much of the education build up in the north, and they are getting the job done here in the south. Most Southern states now offer free college to everyone with the grades to go. MI in the short time Republicans have run it, have turned around dismal results to sending more of their high school graduates to college then any other state. The black belt portion of the state run by the Democrats since the beginning of time still perform the worst in the nation though. The left runs all the worst school districts in the country. Texas has the best results if you control by race.

They dont make much money during their retirement. What about that don't you understand? It isnt a move of money, it is a move of personal income that was mapped.

 

some key factors to determine feasibility, distance and size of population served and public transportation at terminal ends of the high speed rail...europe and japan have cost effective high speed rail but they both have high population density and generally excellent public transport at the destination terminals....a few years back I traveled high speed between Amsterdam and Paris, security was non existent, I took public transport (rail) to a high speed terminal made a ticket purchase and was on my way no baggage checking or security lineups, as simple and quick as getting on a bus...no waiting hrs in an airport prior to boarding and in a much more comfortable setting, huge seats to stretch out on, lounge, restaurant...and when I arrived at each destination the public transport was so good requirements for a rental car was unnecessary...

 

You didn't measure chit-house size, and you didn't address your statement that I challenged you on.

You said,...............

Top 2 states in the union as far as growth and people and cash moving to them? Florida and Texas. Biggest losers in the nation under the same criteria? New York and California. Why are you losing so much cash and people in your 2 most liberal states?

Obviously we are not losing cash, our GDP puts Texas to shame, and we out pacing Texas.

Have some more colors, that maybe related to the subject?

And you are wrong about population, wish you were correct, but no, you are dreaming again. More colors for you..........

 

Railways may be 'old' technology but it's a technology which is still very relevant-and it works. We're still using the internal combustion engine which is over a century old, and the jet engine is not far behind. Given an appropriate application any technology can be successful for generations given technological advances in its field.

 

Can you say lobbyists?

Every vote has a price.........

 

You can't compare anything in America's woefully inept and archaic transport systems to what the rest of the world's advanced nations have.

 

Please PM me when you understand the difference between an urban light-rail system and inter-city high speed rail.

 

Uuum, how many elderly do you know of that would be going from south FL to Orlando on a regular basis? Probably NONE!!! If there are any, not enough to spend X billion on. We already have trains that go back and forth. We're talking HIGH SPEED RAIL here. The stations would be near I-95 or east. Guess what? It takes around a 1/2 hr in the Ft Lauderdale area to even get to the station averaging out where everyone has to come from. MOST people don't live next to i-95, unless you're poor, and they're not going to Orlando regularly=) Then you have to park. Then do what you need to do to get on the train, gather bags, ect. Can you just show up a 1 minute before it arrives and hop right on? Lets say 45 min then. That's almost 1/3 of the drive to Orlando right there, since when we make our annual trip its right around 3 hrs. Not sure what the current price of 4 roundtrip tickets would be, but doubt its anything close to around a tank & a 1/4 of gas(in a minivan) and $20 in tolls up the turnpike. And thats if we
take the turnpike all the way. We could take i-95 part of the way and save $5 each way, but whatever. The you'll have to be staying at a resort since you'll need a car unless you plan on eating at Disney or in the hotel. Most people certainly do NOT stay at the resorts. Thats only a small portion of the bigger picture. So you've got a rental or taxis to go anywhere that's not back and forth to Disney.

Its really hard to justify sorry and thats why it wasn't done. When you look at REALITY, its very unnecessary, unless gas as $10/gallon. We're all ^$*#(# if that ever happens so no high speed rail will save us at that point. Once you've got electric cars that cuts costs even more, and we all know that's coming FAST. Lets not even factor in smart cars like Google and others are creating, that may start linking up on highways, that could remove traffic from the equation. WHat if we spent X billion to to create this new rail, that only 1/2 of the people actually use and suddenly we could just drive to the Turnpike hit the autopilot and you'll whizz up there at 80-100mph while you take a nap, then you get to take over your car again once you get there? We just invested in OUTDATED tech that would become almost obsolete. HELLO????

The real future is not public transportation. Its smart cars like in Minority Report that use all our existing infrastructure in a better way, while retaining all the control people actually need. Most of us live in the suburbs, where public transportation is mostly impossible. We don't want to be saddled down waiting for a bus, waiting for a train, ect. We just want to go and drive 10-15 min to where we need to be, hop back in our car, ect. In FL especially when its raining or really hot out, jumping on buses seems even more horrible. No way you can create any sort of train/trolley system that can weave its way around all our grids of homes, without taking up even more road space. Its basically impossible. Even crazier when you figure, that depending on the place you live, it can take minutes of driving just to get to the gate of your community. No WAY anyone is walking in 95 degree heat to the gate then waiting to get on a buss. What then, create huge parking lots at each community gates? Where are they going to go? Knock down some homes to make the space? Build it over the nice green entrances, bulldoze all those trees and hedges and make the entrance look like a$$? Thats what people want, a big parking lot to be the first thing they see when they go in and out of their community. NO thanks.

I guess if you got rid of all our cars so all the road space is just a bunch of trains, it could be viable, but then how do you transition to it? Can't get rid of the cars until you have the system in place, but you can't create the system until you get rid of all the cars. Quite a pickle.

Dream all you want. Its not happening.

 

"Can you say lobbyists?"

There is no shortage of lobbyists for high speed rail boondoggles. Just like fuel ethanol.

 

You must be on the east side of the state! A lot of the license plates on the west coast are Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota!

 

About a third of the length of the NJT is part of the Interstate Highway system, so 90% of the cost of that project was federally financed, since the connection is with I-76. NJ also has a parallel interstate (I 295) that is funded at the same level, so the interchange at the beginning of the ACE is also federally financed. The Garden State Parkway is US Route ( and is financed at 50%, as all US routes are).

 

Where did you get that information? That's not the case with Florida's Sunpass. It gets all of it's funding from tolls.

 

The poster I was responding to was referring to the rail system in the Orlando area, a subject I know something about. He was not talking about inter-city high speed rail.

Please PM me when you've obtained a reading comprehension sufficient to follow along with this discussion.

 

"Think of the Acela Express in the Northeast, or the Pacific Surfliner between San Diego and Los Angeles. These 26 routes carry four-fifths of Amtrak's passengers, or 25.8 million riders per year. And they're growing rapidly. Taken as a whole, these shorter routes are profitable to operate — mainly because the two big routes in the Northeast Corridor earn enough to cover losses elsewhere.

Then there are Amtrak's 15 long-haul routes over 750 miles. Many of these were originally put in place to placate members of Congress all over the country, and they span dozens of states. This includes the California Zephyr route, which runs from Chicago to California and gets just 376,000 riders a year. All told, these routes lost $597.3 million in 2012."

"Amtrak is coming under heavy scrutiny these days. The passenger rail service needed $1.4 billion in subsidies from Congress in 2012"

Not really high speed means not high speed compared to other true high speed rail outside the USA and it means it doesn't go any faster than cars on the freeway.

Regarding trains...you are not going to have a selection of companies to buy your ticket. There is one route typically and one train service and you pay whatever their price might be...

 

For anyone who has been to Disneyland, they know about the monorail system. It's quick, clean, quiet, and is above ground. I have never understood why we don't have these monorail systems everywhere in the USA? They can run down the middle of freeways and roads without interfering with existing roadway. They surely are less expensive to construct. I think Seattle has expanded the monorail system they have and although I don't know I'm guessing the people love it. It would be great to have local train service as an option!

 

The problem I have with High Speed Rail is the way it's being implemented. The Obama Administration used a model much like the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 that started the Interstate Highway System. Under that system and under the High Speed Rail system, the Federal Government would give money to the states to build infrastructure to a federal standard, but it would be up to the States to maintain the infrastructure.

With Highways, it's not that big a problem. I believe most of the states had highways at the time and the expertise to maintain the highways at a high standard was quite easy to come by. With high-speed rail, it's different. The HSR network would require intensive maintenance to ensure the system is in proper working order at all times. A state like Wisconsin, which barely has experience with intercity rail, does not have the homegrown expertise to build and maintain a HSR corridor. We would have to rely on foreign experts for the most part for maintenance of the system. Private contracts are expensive, and when the private contracts are to foreign countries, it's even more expensive.

I'd love to have HSR access in my hometown. Hell, I'll settle for Amtrak basic service to Milwaukee. I just don't see the benefit of having a high-speed rail system maintained by people with no experience in it. A smarter system would start out with the Federal government through Amtrak maintaining the system nationwide and then teaching the states how to do it.

 

Yes Amtrak is so profitable and well run.

Amtrak Managed to Lose $833 Million Selling $9.50 Hamburgers

Amtrak has been heavily subsidized for years, and you probably already vaguely knew(*)that it(*)operates at a loss, but the extent of the loss it takes on food -- $833 million over the last ten years, we learned in a(*)congressional hearing(*)Thursday -- is just staggering.(*)For anybody who's ever boarded a train hungry and been forced to cough up the better part of $20 for a burger and a beer, it's terribly frustrating to learn that that sad $9.50 hamburger actually costs taxpayers more than $16. The main reasons government auditors found for that: Theft, waste, and bad oversight.

Amtrak has been trying to figure out how to break even on food since Congress required it to do so in 1981, and it's never been able to,(*)The New York Times' Ron Nixon reports. That's because two different Amtrak departments oversee food service, and they haven't coordinated with one another to stop losses, largely from employee theft, Amtrak inspector general Ted Alves told the hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Some 87 percent of that theft happens on long-haul routes, Alves said. In a report last year, he outlined some of the schemes, including shorting cash register sales, inflating first-class meal checks, selling non-Amtrak items, and plain old stealing. Amtrak has some plans in place to counter that theft and waste, including a loss-prevention unit, more cashless purchases, and a better inventory-tracking system. But so far, Amtrak's food service program still costs it, and by extension us, a fortune.

http://www.thewire.com/national/2012/08/your-950-hamburger-costs-amtrak-fortune/55379/

 

Disney has a reason it has several theme parks and guests needing to move around to them from a central parking hub and its a private system, if you cram people into compact urban areas organized around this sort of system sure it makes sense, in many areas it won't.

 

Excellent example.It isn't even close to being cost-effective.
We saw firsthand how the Concord project worked.Faster and bigger is
not what's it's cracked up to be.That is like saying a Bigger restaurant with faster service
is better.No way.
If Amtrak can't operate with a profit what makes anyone think a monumentally
expensive to start and finish project like high speed rail is gonna work and be
prudent.Don't forget the Titanic was widely advertised as Unsinkable.
It never made it past it's maiden voyage.
Plus,we just dropped our Space Program.We now have to pay Russia like
$ 72 Million just to launch a craft into space orbit.