[hinckley buzzard]

Now there's some infrastructure we really need. Specially targeted at those who can't lose their money fast enough as it is.

[jveritas]

The liberal communist blogs have been talking for while that Obama major public projects will be about building high speed train railways connecting many major cities across the country. They were so orgasmic that we are going to become like Europe where people travel using trains. The morons do not understand that if high speed railways are successful in the US we would have done it decades ago but it is an absolute failed business as AMTRAK has proved.

[dr_who]

If you have a governor/senator/mayor who proposes maglev trains, that’s a very good sign that your principality is going to have a major fiscal crisis in a few years time.

[bpjam]

I’m IN Las Vegas and I would directly benefit from a train which costs tens of billions of dollars which goes from a market of 2M people to one with 10M. But.....

Those trains are boondoggles from the getgo. We have a ‘monorail’ on The Strip which was partially paid for with Federal transportation dollars. Tourists don’t want to use it. It has lost money every year it has been in existence and there is no likelihood that it will stop being a financial drain any time soon.

But, just a little insight for those of you who have never wasted 4-6 hours of your life driving from Las Vegas to Los Angeles or vice versa... California loses millions of hours of lost productivity each year with its citizens sitting on the I-15 freeway waiting to get out of or into the LA area. Sunday afternoons and evenings drivers are adding hours to their commute back to LA because California won’t expand the freeways even though they have been offered the money to do the projects by the Nevada delegation.

It would actually SAVE California money if the maglev got built (as long as it wasn’t with their own money, that is). And, of course, it would infinitely benefit LV casinos. But it would also harm some other LV professionals because it would make an easier commute for many new transplants to go back to SoCal to see their doctors, accountants, etc. Trust me on this, I’ve had plenty of first hand experience with numerous clients. And it would actually add to the tourism base in SoCal since people in LV would have a place to go on a weekend trip like Disneyland which is much easier (”Vegas” isn’t exactly Disneyland to those people in Vegas who have kids. It’s a great place and all but it’s not Disneyland)

But there won’t be a maglev train between LA and LV because Harry ain’t gonna last that long. He has been talking up this train idea for about a decade at least. But there isn’t any money in the Federal budget in the last decade and there is even less chance of it now since it doesn’t really scream ‘vital necessity!!’