Posted on 05/17/2011 11:42:32 AM PDT by Qbert
To leftists the fact that its not being used is justification for more taxpayer funding.
We knew all this about the American public not using rail transporation in the 70’s. We learned the rail operations could never support themselves due to the lack of passengers. People don’t want to get mugged on American trains. And now we have to repeat it all over again?
Same with the one in Seattle/Tacoma.
It would have been far cheaper to buy each of those dozen people a Mercedes and a lifetime of free gas.
That's a lot of crumbling bridges and roads that could be fixed.
I fail to see why the federal government should be collecting any gas tax. With the Interstate Highway System completed, roads should be a state responsibility.
Yeah, So?
They have the best infrastructure, still......////sssss
I rarely see any passengers on the new Austin, TX rail.
Regardless of what information they have or where they got it; it is their own ideology that shapes how they view and use that information.
There is a rather nice light rail system here in Pittsburgh that people might actually use due to the scarcity of parking downtown.
But they don’t because it runs so seldom the cars are always packed like sardine cans. All the Port Authority’s cash goes to pay the pensions of drivers who retire at age 52, leaving nothing to actually operate a system they spent hundreds of millions to construct.
Mostly the last (their own personal beliefs about how people should travel). The surveys and computer models are used primarily to justify the personal beliefs.
Willie Greene would be sad.
Same story here in Seattle. And they are pushing more miles of it on us. Some areas are being taxed for it, who won’t see a track in their area until 2024
A survey of North American light rail projects shows that costs of most LRT systems range from $15 million per mile to over $100 million per mile. Seattle’s new light rail system is by far the most expensive in the U.S. at $179 million per mile, since it includes extensive tunneling in poor soil conditions, elevated sections, and stations as deep as 180 feet below ground level.
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/013562.html
I was thinking; thats about 7 miles of interstate or about 2 bridges.
Remember that if you get federal dollars you get prevailing wage laws.
You also get union labor (most likely) so you get a padded payroll with lots of high priced standing around or sitting in a truck waiting.
Only $1.5 billion for 7.3 miles? How do they build things so cheap?
Our sick, twisted, foul, evil, corrupt, and degenerate political class love rail systems. When built with the idiotic taxpayers money raily systems provide a tangible object that upon which the politician can affix a sign exhibiting his name. For that little sign dear taxpayer sucker you pay billions. Plus the dollars going in the pockets of those politically related to its design, construction and operation are astronomical.
Our sick, twisted, foul, evil, corrupt, and degenerate political class love rail systems. When built with the idiotic taxpayers money raily systems provide a tangible object that upon which the politician can affix a sign exhibiting his name. For that little sign dear taxpayer sucker you pay billions. Plus the dollars going in the pockets of those politically related to its design, construction and operation are astronomical.
There is NO light rail system in America that is even close to self-sufficent:
- Boston recovers nearly 60% of its costs from fares
- The national average is 25%
- Houston recovers 10% (the lowest)
The biggest problem with urban mass transit systems is that they don’t go where people need and want them to go, they go where politicians want them to go or where politicians want people to go.
In Sacramento, for instance, they built light rail from low income neighborhoods to the downtown. Light rail notoriously does not connect to one single shopping mall in the region. Had they built it from the neighborhoods where most downtown workers live maybe it would do better, but the decision was based on politics and not on ridership.
“Same with the one in Seattle/Tacoma.”
In fairness, a system that’s not even finished yet is not going to have very high ridership at all.
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