Posted on 05/26/2019 5:46:26 AM PDT by vannrox
Well, California Governor Gavin Newsom has abandoned plans to build a high-speed railroad between Los Angeles and San Francisco. After spending billions of dollars in funds, much of it from the Federal government, the Governor said that the project should be shelved.
He cited that the project was too expensive.
The face of American politics today. This is the slick and well-packaged oligarchy pick for California. Mr. California Governor Gavin Newsom. Look how plastic he appears. Why, he could be right out of one of those political villains from a 1980s John Cusack movie.
It all began ten years ago. Back then, President Obama called for a network of high-speed railroads to criss-cross the country within 25 years. The nation roared with glee and cheering his forward thinking.
Perspicacious = To be far-sighted in understanding things.
At that time, of course, the rest of the world had already implemented High Speed Rail. America was going to get involved in a game of catch up.
Only this time, progressive values and liberal management would lead the way.
His plan, began its implementation through California.
Of course, compared to the rest of the world, its pretty modest. The idea was to link the two largest cities in California together. This would occur by placing rail lines through the large entirely rural California valley. The top speed would be limited to 220 MPH, which is the global norm. The most ambitious plans would have 800 miles of rail line, paid in part by the Federal government and bonds issued by the (insolvent) California government.
The decision to cancel this program was welcomed by Conservatives, and derailed by Liberals. Both for reasons related towards political considerations. However, in my mind, everyone loses.
Whats worse, rubbing salt in the wound, comes President Trump. He rightfully questioned the decision to kill the project. As a businessman, you do not casually start of kill things without study, and an analysis of the consequences. Obviously, there were concerns that the decision to kill the project were not carefully thought out.
This is an excerpt. You can read the rest HERE.
how do you have cross country interstate Hwys, fights and trains at the state level only?
One shudders to consider it!
A telling and important point lost on the mass transitphiles.
example: LA where ridership is down because of homeless grime and feces on trains
does it seem that about half those lines are too short for high speed?
[A few reasons for this. For one, the US the is a very large country. And our population is spread out. Most people do not live in big cities. China is a large country too, but they have very high population density. So the train is useful to a high percentage of the population. In the US, a cross-country train would have dozens of stops and wouldnt be close enough to impact enough people.]
“As well as Russia, and China”
russia and china don’t count: they’re dictatorships that can allocate resources however they want, regardless of whether it makes economic sense, and according to this article, Australia has only thought about building bullet trains, but never actually built anything that mattered:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Australia
the original posted article is the usual leftist propaganda and lies about high-speed rail ...
oh, and here’s a great article about the impending economic disaster in China due to high-speed rail debt:
https://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/how-chinas-railways-are-leading-to-high-speed-debt/88791
is that what you’d like to see happen in the U.S.?
You must have missed the transporter accident in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” >:-)
Yes that is a good article.
I don’t want anything bad to happen to the USA. Which is my point, and why I am so very frustrated by all the rah-rah ignorance. If you are driving a POS clunker, you don’t pretend that it is a Bentley do you?
America has some real to goodness problems.
The article is pointing out that the time has come, in America, that the level of corruption has reach a peak inefficiency. It is at a point where large capital projects are no longer possible in the USA. The government is that inefficient.
I don’t know what is going to happen in the future. I do not know.
What I do know is that America has a very serious spending problem, and it needs to be resolved soon. I argue that the money wasted on 8 wars could have been used to implement HSR all over the USA by now. But we didn’t do that. We threw them away... burned them in really third-world nations.
Meanwhile, here is China. They are not involved in massive wars all over the world. They are not giving money to third-world dictators. Instead, they are using that money domestically. One of the things that they are doing is the HSR. And it IS IMPRESSIVE.
Hey! In the big picture you can listen or not. Do or not. Your life is up to you. I’m just telling youse guys that America has a short... a very short... breathing room with Trump, and then the entire downward cycle will restart in all of it’s Obama glory.
What we need is high speed canals.
here’s why:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3752371/posts
NO high speed rail in the world exists as a financially successful private enterprise. All of them are subsidized and must be subsidized. When the states that have done this go bankrupt, they will all be like the Concorde airliner.
ROFL: https://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/how-chinas-railways-are-leading-to-high-speed-debt/88791
On FR this morning. Confirms what I said about how the Chinese Communists have built high speed rail.
There may be a few places in the world where high speed rail makes economic sense. But apparently it’s not in China and it cetlrtainly is not in the US.
I admit that the government at most levels in the US is becoming Third-World-ineffective. But that is a result of lack of will and lack of citizenship here. Progressives for the last hundred years have been leading the US into helpless dependency, where citizenship is a bad word.
But the lack of high speed rail, built with tax money stolen at gunpoint from citizens is not, I submit, evidence of that.
You touched on things I hadn’t even thought about. The right of way to lay the track is bound to deprive many of their property rights.
I like trains. I have ridden on trains on 3 continents. I just don’t think the concept of a high speed train as they talk about will every be a good idea. If they every started with a route that went from a highly populated area to a vacation destination like Vegas, that might work. You could zip in and out easily. No need for a car once you are at the Vegas destination. That concept is at least rational.
On the other other hand, a high speed train in my area would be a complete boondoggle. Yet, the local democrats have been trying to get a high speed train for over a decade.
My wife and I just took two HSR trips in Europe in the last two weeks during a month-long vacation over there.
The Thalys HSR from Amsterdam Central to Paris Nord, and the Eurostar HSR from Paris to London through the Chunnel.
The Thalys was the nicest and fastest, and the cheapest since we booked several months in advance at only 35 each.
Though it stops 4 times along the way,
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport
Rotterdam Central Station
Antwerp Central Station
Brussel Midi Station
it still hit speeds of over 311 km/h (193+ mph) along the longer sections. This speed is what their display showed, and was doubled-checked with my phone’s GPS Speedometer app.
Very smooth, with a lot of the trip in trenches and tunnels.
The Eurostar was a little rougher, with more side to side swaying, and not as fast, especially since it’s speed restricted in the Chunnel.
Very convenient, and considering security/check-in, etc., probably much faster than flying. The only problem for us was that all these train stations are HUGE, and from the time our driver let us off, we walked over two miles until we were standing where our car would stop.
On both trains we were assigned a car and a seat, and through bad luck, or enemy action, we were always that the far end of the train, and these are long trains.
And apparently, they don’t believe in any kind of luggage carts, or porters, because there were none to be found.
So here we are dragging two large rolling suitcases and two smaller carry-on size rollers also. Then we had to drag them up the steps onto the train. But since we were pretty much blocking the door, everyone pitched in to get us onboard.
We were warned both in printed signs and onboard announcements to keep our small carry-ons with us in the over-seat bins due to ‘luggage thieves’.
All in all, a nice experience, and we would do it again.
Agreed.
Oh, I don’t know, seems like getting groped by strange men might help ticket sales where San Francisco is involved....
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