Trump 'skinny budget' would starve Chicago transit, City of New Orleans train: officials

The City of New Orleans, the train immortalized in the Steve Goodman song, could disappear under President Donald Trump's preliminary budget blueprint.

So could the California Zephyr, the Empire Builder and other storied long-distance Amtrak runs, along with the federal funding that could replace Metra's out-of-date rolling stock, unclog Chicago freight traffic and extend the CTA's Red Line from 95th Street to 130th Street, according to transit advocates and officials.

Trump's 2018 "skinny budget" proposes a 13 percent cut on federal funding for transportation, which is directed entirely against nonroad spending. Trump's 2018 spending plan will start getting more attention in Congress since the bill to replace the Affordable Care Act has been pulled for lack of votes. A full budget release is expected in May.

The president's transportation budget proposal may ultimately get no further than did the Republican health care bill. But the transit cuts laid out in the proposal are still worrying local transit advocates and agency officials, since they show the administration's priorities.

The cost of upgrading all those lines to two tracks is prohibitive. The cost of upgrading those tracks to a capacity for higher speed trains is totally unaffordable.

NO line other than the Northeast corridor will EVER make enough money to pay for itself.

People today just do not like mass transit for long trips.

We fly because we have to in order to get from coast to coast in acceptable time. If we could drive it alone in our own cars in that same time we would do it.

Who wants to be trapped sitting next to a person who smells, is rude, overflows into your seat etc etc etc? No one. (The John Rocker rule applies)

When driving alone you control the pace, the environment, the food, the music. Everything about the trip is better EXCEPT for the duration of the trip.

Cost for driving is usually cheaper (if you have more than one person) compared to air or train. (We drove from Indiana to Florida round trip. Two people less than 400 dollars (including one night hotel!). Airfare would have been at least 500 with another $100 to $200 for checked baggage plus rental car in Florida (another $100 or so).

Air travel is reserved for times when speed is of the essence. We’ll put up with the hassles (Being groped by TSA, limiting the amount of stuff we can bring with us. Being held to someone else’s schedule, sitting next to or near undesirables etc) just to get there on time.

Rail on standard tracks does NOT have the advantage of speed. It has all of the hassle of air travel but none of the benefits. It will never again work in this country.

The days of paasenger rail are over.

Kansas City is fleecing the taxpayers for a toy train monorail. It is about two miles long, it is a downtown amusement ride, goes nowhere in particular and cost plenty. It jumps the tracks in the snow, has eliminated a majority of the small businesses along its route since it obliterated their parking spaces. It was created by a rigged vote where only downtown dwellers could cast ballots and there could not have been more than 500 of them. These few people determined the fate of an entire city transportation budget and there is no proof the vote was not rigged by the vote counters created just for the specially created district just for the vote. Without federal money the expensive train to nowhere will be nothing but a failed disney ride touted as the future of transportation for an area covering several thousand square miles.

The Kansas City bus system is great and has flexible routes and great buses covering thousands of square miles. The federal money for toy train monorails needs to dry up and go away before the city planners destroy the real bus system for an illusion of progress straight out of the agenda 21 manual.

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