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I’m assuming it’s our governors “train to nowhere,” the absolutely biggest boondoggle California has come up with for years. Already it is costing millions in interest payments on bonds that will barely launch construction on this high speed rail project that Californian’s don’t want and likely wont use. Our governor Moonbeam is obsessed with this project, in spite of escalating cost estimates, lawsuits, problems with environmentalists etc. * http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/304974/train-nowhere-full-speed-ahead-john-fund * http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-01-09/opinions/35439370_1_high-speed-rail-immense-financial-risk-peer-review-group
Why do Americans hate trains so much? Because they save the public money and minimise pollution? It seems like a big proportion of you folks hate anything that has to be provided by a central authority, even if it is good for one and all. I gave up my car a few years ago because the local train service is all I need, seven days a week. I hire a car on holidays. I laugh at fuel prices and read on the way to work or listen to podcasts without distraction. (OK, I admit the Porsche 928 was nice before the divorce …)
It is a real pity that after WW2 it was decided that paving the country, making the railroads help pay for it and then regulating them into bankruptcy was the way to go. Maybe we should make all highways toll roads and make the airlines pay for terminals and ground crews. High speed rail in this country probably will never work but if the playing field was more level we could develop better commuter and distance rail systems.
if you live in a high density area and can walk to the train from home and office, you likely will enjoy the convenience. but if the train comes nowhere near your home or office, it will not be much good or convenient. marin county has an even worse project that is basically corporate welfare for the guy who owns a gravel quarry. it is called the SMART train, for Schmucks MAy Ride the Train. most of us call it the not too smart train. AND i want to add that i am considered a liberal for many reasons. this train business belongs where people live in dense apartment blocks.
Prof Krugman lives next to one train station and works near others (at his many jobs). He was furious that New Jersey wouldn’t put in a second rail line, since the one he now has to use is far too crowded.
But if you’re not within walking distance of a train station, dave has a good point. Years ago, PBS showed 60 children standing in two groups of 30, about 3 miles from a school. A bus with 1 gallon of diesel that got a little more than 3 miles per gallon took 30 of them to school with some diesel left over. A Rabbit that got 40 miles per gallon had to take 3 at a time and drive back for 3 more, and so ran out of gas with about half the children still waiting. So public transportation is MUCH better if everyone lives in the same place and has to go to the same place. With the children living scattered, miles apart, having a parent run them in by car is cheaper than having a bus drive all over the county.. Back in the ‘70s, I was talking to a Brit who wanted to abolish the railways so people would buy cars. There was a terrible housing shortage, since everyone had to live within walking distance of a train station, but with cars, they could build on the moors, where land was cheap and plentiful. Of course, if both trains and suitably located high-rise housing and concentrated work areas were set up, the use of fossil fuels could be reduced by 90%, but that’s not going to happen.
In high density population, trains are supreme. No contest. Putting trains were population is going to become dense is what effective planning is all about. Nobody wants a boondoggle, folks. A lot of people would like to live in California, amongst the moonbeams.
It now takes just abut 3 hours to travel by air from Los Angeles to Sacramento or San Fransisco (and that would be if you are very quick, and even very lucky). The actual air travel time is less than 1 hour, but just getting to an airport, parking, getting through security, and then getting on the plane itself takes about i hour each side of the trip.
High speed rail could be easily competitive with this travel time. Some areas of such a system would not be able to achieve one hundred mph as the trains would have to go though mountain territory, but the flat sections though such areas as Antelope and the Central Valleys could easily achieve 150+ mph.
Once upon a time California had one of the finest passenger train travel systems not only in the US itself, but even in the world in the magnificent Southern Pacific Daylight system. I would like to think that we can match the technology of at least the 1930’s now.
And I think we could have that again. I must admit however, that I do not understand why the estimates of building such a high speed rail system are so very high. The flat sections should actually be less in cost than the huge freeway system was to build, and the mountain sections are actually far less in miles than the flat sections would be.
From the EuRail site: “The high-speed trains used in France are known as TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse = high speed train). With 149 destinations and a speed of up to 320 km/h (200 mph), the TGV is the fastest way to visit the various regions of France.”
So the French, which many ultra conservatives here seem to think are so backwards have such a system. And we in the US can not match the French (or most other European Rail Systems for that matter).
Are we in the US really the ones that are so very backwards then? The French can do this, and we can not?
We can build a far larger freeway across flat land for some $20 million per mile. So, the far less rail system should not even cost that much. The flat sections should run just about $7 billion. 350 miles times $20 million = $7 billion. And the 50 or so miles of mountainous territory should cost no more than the total of the flat sections. So the total should be built for about $15 billion, and that would be over about 5 years, so the per year cost should be no more than $3 billion per year.
Yet we hear estimates as high as $100 billion. So, just who is padding these estimates by up to some 6 times as much as the actual cost should be?
The regular railroads that only want to move mass goods? The highway people? Politicians that want to pad anything coming through their districts? Or, the airlines that would lose business?
I do not know, but somebody sure wants to pad the numbers!!
That’s too bad the trucking industry is keeping the transportation of people back. - How much of the cost is the acquisition of the land needed to build the rails & stations? Won’t the cost rise as the planners run into the typical NIMBYs and narrow minded?
Well it appears many of you want to continue using tax money to build more and bigger highways as that form of government intrusion is okay. High speed rail a few parking lots, a few buses and you can have a great system like Santa Fe/Albuquerque does. People fought it and now embrace its utility.
@Robert Landers and @narrowminded, Amtrak is now using security measures like the airlines use. They didn’t when I took the train from Chicago to Philly and back in June 2008 to attend a wedding. Now I have to drive if I want to go long distance. BTW, friends who have been there tell me that European countries have had armed soldiers patrolling their train stations for many years now.
Mix a snifter of Bill Mauldin, a dash of Jeff McNelly and a very large dollop of common sense, and you begin to get an idea of Lisa Benson’s considerable talent.
Clay Bennett by Clay Bennett
Steve Benson by Steve Benson
Comments (63) (Please sign in to comment)
mickey1339
said, 4 months ago
I’m assuming it’s our governors “train to nowhere,” the absolutely biggest boondoggle California has come up with for years. Already it is costing millions in interest payments on bonds that will barely launch construction on this high speed rail project that Californian’s don’t want and likely wont use.
Our governor Moonbeam is obsessed with this project, in spite of escalating cost estimates, lawsuits, problems with environmentalists etc.
*
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/304974/train-nowhere-full-speed-ahead-john-fund
*
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-01-09/opinions/35439370_1_high-speed-rail-immense-financial-risk-peer-review-group
rvernon said, 4 months ago
There isn’t ANY form of progress Baggers don’t despise.
ConserveGov said, 4 months ago
Libs Gone Wild in Cali. The highest taxes in the nation and yet the Dems who run things there still say they need more for their corrupt “projects”.
Ottodesu said, 4 months ago
Why do Americans hate trains so much? Because they save the public money and minimise pollution?
It seems like a big proportion of you folks hate anything that has to be provided by a central authority, even if it is good for one and all.
I gave up my car a few years ago because the local train service is all I need, seven days a week. I hire a car on holidays.
I laugh at fuel prices and read on the way to work or listen to podcasts without distraction.
(OK, I admit the Porsche 928 was nice before the divorce …)
alcors3 said, 4 months ago
It is a real pity that after WW2 it was decided that paving the country, making the railroads help pay for it and then regulating them into bankruptcy was the way to go. Maybe we should make all highways toll roads and make the airlines pay for terminals and ground crews. High speed rail in this country probably will never work but if the playing field was more level we could develop better commuter and distance rail systems.
davefrompaterson said, 4 months ago
if you live in a high density area and can walk to the train from home and office, you likely will enjoy the convenience. but if the train comes nowhere near your home or office, it will not be much good or convenient. marin county has an even worse project that is basically corporate welfare for the guy who owns a gravel quarry. it is called the SMART train, for Schmucks MAy Ride the Train. most of us call it the not too smart train. AND i want to add that i am considered a liberal for many reasons. this train business belongs where people live in dense apartment blocks.
Michael wme said, 4 months ago
@davefrompaterson
Prof Krugman lives next to one train station and works near others (at his many jobs). He was furious that New Jersey wouldn’t put in a second rail line, since the one he now has to use is far too crowded.
But if you’re not within walking distance of a train station, dave has a good point.
Years ago, PBS showed 60 children standing in two groups of 30, about 3 miles from a school. A bus with 1 gallon of diesel that got a little more than 3 miles per gallon took 30 of them to school with some diesel left over. A Rabbit that got 40 miles per gallon had to take 3 at a time and drive back for 3 more, and so ran out of gas with about half the children still waiting. So public transportation is MUCH better if everyone lives in the same place and has to go to the same place. With the children living scattered, miles apart, having a parent run them in by car is cheaper than having a bus drive all over the county..
Back in the ‘70s, I was talking to a Brit who wanted to abolish the railways so people would buy cars. There was a terrible housing shortage, since everyone had to live within walking distance of a train station, but with cars, they could build on the moors, where land was cheap and plentiful.
Of course, if both trains and suitably located high-rise housing and concentrated work areas were set up, the use of fossil fuels could be reduced by 90%, but that’s not going to happen.
wmconelly said, 4 months ago
In high density population, trains are supreme. No contest. Putting trains were population is going to become dense is what effective planning is all about. Nobody wants a boondoggle, folks. A lot of people would like to live in California, amongst the moonbeams.
Robert Landers said, 4 months ago
@mickey1339
It now takes just abut 3 hours to travel by air from Los Angeles to Sacramento or San Fransisco (and that would be if you are very quick, and even very lucky). The actual air travel time is less than 1 hour, but just getting to an airport, parking, getting through security, and then getting on the plane itself takes about i hour each side of the trip.
High speed rail could be easily competitive with this travel time. Some areas of such a system would not be able to achieve one hundred mph as the trains would have to go though mountain territory, but the flat sections though such areas as Antelope and the Central Valleys could easily achieve 150+ mph.
Once upon a time California had one of the finest passenger train travel systems not only in the US itself, but even in the world in the magnificent Southern Pacific Daylight system.
I would like to think that we can match the technology of at least the 1930’s now.
And I think we could have that again. I must admit however, that I do not understand why the estimates of building such a high speed rail system are so very high. The flat sections should actually be less in cost than the huge freeway system was to build, and the mountain sections are actually far less in miles than the flat sections would be.
From the EuRail site: “The high-speed trains used in France are known as TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse = high speed train). With 149 destinations and a speed of up to 320 km/h (200 mph), the TGV is the fastest way to visit the various regions of France.”
So the French, which many ultra conservatives here seem to think are so backwards have such a system. And we in the US can not match the French (or most other European Rail Systems for that matter).
Are we in the US really the ones that are so very backwards then? The French can do this, and we can not?
We can build a far larger freeway across flat land for some $20 million per mile. So, the far less rail system should not even cost that much. The flat sections should run just about $7 billion. 350 miles times $20 million = $7 billion. And the 50 or so miles of mountainous territory should cost no more than the total of the flat sections. So the total should be built for about $15 billion, and that would be over about 5 years, so the per year cost should be no more than $3 billion per year.
Yet we hear estimates as high as $100 billion. So, just who is padding these estimates by up to some 6 times as much as the actual cost should be?
The regular railroads that only want to move mass goods? The highway people? Politicians that want to pad anything coming through their districts? Or, the airlines that would lose business?
I do not know, but somebody sure wants to pad the numbers!!
olfart said, 4 months ago
^ The trucking industry has a strong lobby. We have been supporting them for years, and they aren’t about to give up a nickel of our money.
narrowminded said, 4 months ago
Liberal progress. Trains and wind mills.
narrowminded said, 4 months ago
TSA will handle the security so get to the station at least an hour before departure so they can search and scan.
cjr53 said, 4 months ago
@olfart
That’s too bad the trucking industry is keeping the transportation of people back.
-How much of the cost is the acquisition of the land needed to build the rails & stations? Won’t the cost rise as the planners run into the typical NIMBYs and narrow minded?
ODon said, 4 months ago
Well it appears many of you want to continue using tax money to build more and bigger highways as that form of government intrusion is okay. High speed rail a few parking lots, a few buses and you can have a great system like Santa Fe/Albuquerque does. People fought it and now embrace its utility.
Clark Kent said, 4 months ago
@Robert Landers and @narrowminded,
Amtrak is now using security measures like the airlines use. They didn’t when I took the train from Chicago to Philly and back in June 2008 to attend a wedding. Now I have to drive if I want to go long distance. BTW, friends who have been there tell me that European countries have had armed soldiers patrolling their train stations for many years now.