Posted on 10/08/2010 6:11:38 AM PDT by Willie Green
A massive national effort is under way to upgrade our transportation infrastructure. While the current federal administration is setting the nationwide vision for rail travel, Michigan is dangerously close to falling out of the equation.
Our state has routinely cut funding for Amtrak. Our rail service from Detroit to Chicago takes 5.5 hours, is unreliable and doesn't run frequently enough.
We can no longer dodge this critical investment. Unless we want to be left behind, Michigan must show Washington we're truly committed to a comprehensive overhaul of our rail system. We must continue to modernize our rails now to attract federal dollars to make that happen.
A comprehensive effort for transit in our state would lay the groundwork for Michigan to reap all the benefits high-speed rail travel has to offer --creating construction jobs, connecting businesses and helping them grow, cutting travel time to hubs like Chicago by a couple hours, reducing our dependency on foreign oil and helping new industries locate here.
The drawbacks of not upgrading our rail system should serve as even greater motivation to act. With all of Michigan's economic struggles, we can't afford to fall further behind. We've all seen the devastating effects of the auto industry's delay in adjusting to the global economy and how it helped deepen our recession. We're paying for it daily in lost jobs, home foreclosures and continued cuts to priorities like education and public safety.
High-speed rail will make Michigan a better place for businesses to succeed. We have top-notch research institutions, unparalleled manufacturing know-how and fine colleges and universities that continue to produce qualified graduates. It would be tragic to let this all fall by the wayside because we're not connected to a modern regional transit system.
Naysayers will roll out the same old arguments about government spending. And I understand that, but we're not isolated from global change. We can't sit idle. The world will leave us behind and they'll do it in part on high-speed rails. We don't have a choice. Yes, this will take investment, but innovation and progress always do.
I'm not saying we need a 220-mph bullet train tomorrow. That's not really feasible without smaller steps first, but we need to move Michigan forward. Letting our transportation fall even more behind is like putting a big "Closed for Business" sign up across Michigan. We can't afford that. We need jobs, we need businesses and we need investment. Investors, entrepreneurs and federal transportation officials are looking decades down the road to determine how to use their resources today.
We can't let our short-term struggles force us into short-sighted policies that will hinder our recovery and haunt us for the next century. The stakes are just too high.
The future of our state and our children will be dictated by the decisions we make today. If we choose not to develop high-speed rail, we will lose more jobs, more employers and more investment. We need all those things to rebuild our economy, move Michigan forward and create a brighter tomorrow. We need to develop high-speed rail in Michigan and we need to do it quickly.
So taxpayers in other states can continue to subsidize bad Michigan Dem policies?
It was Dubya’s trade policies that bankrupted Chrysler & GM.
We’re going to kill it no matter which leftist governor gets elected.
nothing can stop Dems and media from more borrowing and spending as “investment”——no matter what economic crisis is happening and regardless of Boomers’ retirement....
I’m still trying to figure out why Bill Clinton and the media that made a big deal about government debt in the 1990s and under Bush-—ie, “we have to pay down the debt before the Boomers retire”-——have flip-flopping amnesia and think we do, too.
What do they think the tea parties are about? Live by deficits, die by deficits.....
According to Democrats...the Reagan, Bush, and Bush presidencies are defined by deficits and debt——but now at federal, state, and local level -—Dems are ALL ABOUT borrow-and-spend ......
As if it’s ok when they do it-—and as if Reagan, Bush, and Bush didn’t inherit recessions just as bad as Obama’s....
Yeah, unions had NOTHING to do with it.
You truly are a liberal moron.
Michigan already has profitable HS rail systems.
Note that Marx and modern railroads were contemporaries. We don't need Hopium smoking progressives to push the CPUSA agenda beyond what we already have and need to remove.
Anything MI does will only be affordable for other over-paid union members and government parasites. Everyone else will walk...
It was progressive policies (Nazi Pelosi - no oil for YOU! and butt buddy barney - bankrupt the credit markets) that finally killed GM and Chrysler after they had been weakened by progressive Unions. Progressivism is epic failure.
how about just dump rails and rebuild and build roads. We need to boost self driving cars which eliminate the need for passenger rails.
rail is a waste of money and just a political payoff for insiders.
Why take the train and then deal with the hassle of renting a car when you can drive the route in 4.5 hours instead?
I keep asking why towns that already have rail aren’t boomtowns now but it appears that the railtards don’t have the manhood to explain that missing part of their fantasy.
$1 million per mile.
Yeah, we need more of that.
Yeah, that’s why Chrysler got bailed out the first time. Cause of GW.
Idiot.
( Fine cars too. Rusted Aspens, slant 6’s requiring hand fitting cylinder because the castings were so poor....)
Million, try 50 to 500 million a mile for HSR.
with a bucket of tar and a bag of feathers, all the way to the state line.
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