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IBTOSMG!
(In Before The Obligatory Simpsons Monorail Graphic)
Posted on 02/13/2014 7:04:32 PM PST by rightwingerpatriot
There are few things in life that progressive liberals love more than spending other people's money. When ensconced in government, they spend money for freely than a sailor in port who's been at sea for six months. Even when they're not in government, they look for ways to spend our hard-earned tax dollars by pushing ballot initiatives. One type of project in particular seems to excite liberals into a frenzy: high-speed rail. On the surface, you would think that progressive liberals and high-speed rail are an odd mix. You have to use fuel to run a train. You have to hurt Gaia by digging trenches in her flesh and building bridges over her arties in order to build a rail line. Yet, there is a reason why liberals love high-speed rail.
The answer to this question can be summed up in one word: control. Liberals love mass transit as that the power of movement is taken away from the common man. If you're forced to rely upon the government to get you from point A to point B, then you're under their thumb. One of the greatest inventions in modern history is the automobile that freed man from the tyranny of being stuck in a geographic location. Yes, in the past you could use other means of transport, such as horses or ships, to move around, but such modes of transportation lack the immediacy and speed of which you can pick up and go. Sick of the high taxes and insane government where you live? Then pack up your car and drive to another city or state.
The ability to move freely and quickly is something that we shouldn't take lightly. The last act of defiance (before that of open rebellion) is to vote with our feet. That is why liberals hate automobiles and the freedom of the open road. At every turn, they seek to make it more onerous to own a personal car (usually by increasing costs of gas, insurance, and registration) while pushing mass transit as the answer to every problem. Bring up issues facing normal people in most state and local debates, and you'll immediately get progressive liberals bleating about the sad state of mass transit in the area.
Of course, mass transit such as high-speed rail isn't cheap. California's proposed high-speed rail has estimates of $91 billion, which is far more than originally thought. That means that every single person in California will owe $2394 in taxes before the first train even runs. And surprise, surprise, it seems that the high-speed rail won't run as fast as originally proposed. I'm sure costs won't continue to climb in the future.
There is one other aspect of high-speed rail and mass transit besides control that liberals love. They can use such projects to line the pockets of their union allies. I can safely say that every company that gets a contract will have to be unionized. You can't have non-workers getting in the way of the gravy train with their work ethic and keeping within a budget. You've got to feed taxpayer money to unions, which then give money and support to progressive liberal politicians. It's a win-win all around except for freedom.
. . . the infrastructure of which were massive public works in and of themselves, the latter being the largest public works project the country has yet seen. The railroads not so, certainly nowhere near the degree of those two except starting into the 20th Century. Airports and highways have always been dependent on taxation to support them, by design. Time to take all of the above out of government control, maybe?
What high-speed rail would do for the country has already been done. By the airlines and the interstate highway system…
“Although the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 authorized designation of a “National System of Interstate Highways,” the legislation did not authorize an initiating program to build it.
“After taking office in January 1953, President Eisenhower made revitalizing the Nation’s highways one of the goals of his first term. As an army Lieutenant Colonel in 1919, Eisenhower had accompanied a military convoy across the United States and saw the poor condition of our Nation’s roads.
“Later, during his World War II stint as Commander of the Allied Forces, his admiration for Germany’s well-engineered Autobahn highway network reinforced his belief that the United States needed first-class roads. As a result, Eisenhower formed internal committees to study the idea, enlisted the Nation’s Governors to offer suggestions, and met with Members of Congress to promote the proposal.
“When legislation failed in 1955, observers predicted that in the presidential election year of 1956, the Democratic Congress would not approve such a significant plan sought by a Republican President. Nevertheless, President Eisenhower continued to urge approval and worked with Congress to reach compromises that made approval possible. The President signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 on June 29, 1956.”
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.htm#question2
Well, thanks for more of the history of the biggest public works project in US history. I must say I still feel that the reasoning behind it being a public works project is anything but sound.
History
The United States government’s efforts at constructing a national network of highways began on an ad hoc basis with the passage of the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, which provided for $75 million over a five-year period for matching funds to the states for the construction and improvement of highways.[5] The nation’s revenue needs associated with World War I prevented any significant implementation of this policy, which expired in 1921.
As the landmark 1916 law expired, new legislation was passed—the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 (Phipps Act). This new road construction initiative once again provided for federal matching funds for road construction and improvement, $75 million allocated annually.[5] Moreover, this new legislation for the first time sought to target these funds to the construction of a national road grid of interconnected “primary highways” setting up cooperation among the various state highway planning boards.[5]
The Bureau of Public Roads asked the Army to provide a list of roads it considered necessary for national defense.[6] In 1922 General John J. Pershing, former head of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe during the war, complied by submitting a detailed network of 200,000 miles of interconnected primary highways—the so-called Pershing Map.[5]
A boom in road construction followed throughout the decade of the 1920s, with such projects as the New York parkway system constructed as part of a new national highway system. As automobile traffic increased, planners saw a need for such an interconnected national system to supplement the existing, largely non-freeway, United States Numbered Highways system. By the late 1930s, planning had expanded to a system of new superhighways.
In 1938 President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave Thomas MacDonald, chief at the Bureau of Public Roads, a hand-drawn map of the United States marked with eight superhighway corridors for study.[6] In 1939, Bureau of Public Roads Division of Information chief Herbert S. Fairbank wrote a report called Toll Roads and Free Roads, “the first formal description of what became the interstate highway system”, and in 1944 the similarly themed Interregional Highways.[7][8]
The Interstate Highway System gained a champion in President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was influenced by his experiences as a young Army officer crossing the country in the 1919 Army Convoy on the Lincoln Highway, the first road across America. Eisenhower gained an appreciation of the Reichsautobahn system, the first “national” implementation of modern Germany’s Autobahn network as a necessary component of a national defense system while he was serving as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II.[9] He recognized that the proposed system would also provide key ground transport routes for military supplies and troop deployments in case of an emergency or foreign invasion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System
Bingo!
You’ve got to love people pushing 19th Century solutions to 21st Century problems.
Choo-Choom Gang
IBTOSMG!
(In Before The Obligatory Simpsons Monorail Graphic)
High speed rail won’t be viable until the standard gauge is widened to six feet or better
By the airlines and the interstate highway system....
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I would not be surprised if a similar argument was made when automobiles began to replace buggies, and airplanes began to replace . . . oh wait.
Future generations should be encouraged to fill the earth and subdue it. I would encourage them to perhaps bypass the rails and go for a dedicated underground route that facilitates coast to coast travel on a massive scale in a time frame at least twice as fast as the fastest airliners today.
Just as the Keystone Pipeline today is considered a job-creator, so would be a civic project that presents improvements over the status quo. Whether we like it or not, our capacity to invent and improve will not cease, but only be hampered by fraud and laziness.
Now you’re going for anachronisms. The Erie and Lackawanna railroads in the US started out as six-foot-gauge railroads. (They converted to standard gauge in a day.) The Great Western Railway in Britain started out with 7’ ½” gauge.
All about loading gauge when it comes to railroads. Passenger trains in the USA are 10’ 6” wide for the most part (the Acela Express is 10’ 4” wide). Japan’s Shinkansen trains are 11’ 1” wide, just for comparison.
Here’s what could have been done in California.
15 la go Vegas is often a parking lot. Especially weekends. Once people get to Vegas they can easily do without a car.
A high speed from Burbank to Barstow and one from Ontario to Barstow. 1 stop each, Palmdale and Victorville.
Lines converge and one line go Vegas with a stop at state line.
The governor of cal should go to Nevada and meet with mayor of Vegas, Nevada gov, and casino owners. $5 a night room tax to fund the line and supplement operations, if necessary.
Only public funds are to review plans, inspect, review environmental report, provide fight away.
Gambling available on the trains.
” I must say I still feel that the reasoning behind it being a public works project is anything but sound”
It may well have been. And it certainly inflicted lasting damage on all of the little towns that were along Route 66 and other highways that the Interstates bypassed.
At least he was an honest liberal.
High speed rail AKA free money to spend elsewhere
Thanks rightwingerpatriot.
He's got it... nailed.
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