Posted on 01/30/2011 8:04:48 AM PST by rabscuttle385
Key Republicans are embracing a major spending initiative outlined in President Obama's State of the Union address.
Two top members of the House Transportation Committee said they will push the president's initiative seeking to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail over te course of the next 25 years.
"I believe it's good for America to develop a high-speed rail corridor in the Northeast corridor," Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), the chairman of the railroad subcommittee, said according to the Connecticut Post. "It's a place we have to start, we have to accomplish it, because then I believe all of America, in the various corridors around the country, will want high-speed rail if they see success here."
Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the chairman of the whole committee, also said Friday he was "pleased that President Obama has helped to launch a system for improved passenger rail service for our nation."
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
I agree! We need a good high-speed rail system built by the private sector. It should have been done decades ago. The government will only make it a bureaucratic nightmare costing us billions.
TRANSLATION: RINO’s eagerly seek taxpayer money to make them look good to their constituents!!
“Are they really THAT STUPID?”
In a word, YES, they are that stupid. They need to be reminded of Amtrak, maybe they would come to their senses, but I doubt it.
Typical political thinking: Build it then see if the consumer wants it.
Trains are bulky, slow, time consuming and dollar consuming. Just the track alone for national high-speed rail would cost far more than tens of thousands of state-of-the-art airliners and the airports and runways to accommodate them.
They would not solve the security problem experienced at airports, as they would also be targeted by Islamixedup Jihadists.
There is absolutely no way that high-speed rail from anywhere to anywhere else can be economically justified. So in steps the government to spend our money to facilitate a bad idea. Soooo typical.
“I don’t fly. I like the train. Geeze, now I’m a Rino. I get so tired of not being allowed to be a REAL Republican because I don’t agree with every single thing certain FReepers have decided upon. I would love to see a good PRIVATE rail system, btw. But you don’t have to hate passenger trains to be a conservative.”
I love the train too - and I take my kids on it every chance we get. But when there is NO ECONOMIC JUSTIFICATION for throwing HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of my grandkids money into these pits I get a bit ticked off.
Show me a damn study where spending this kind of money has any chance of paying itself back (and none of this carbon crap). Every train system that I’ve seen started in the past 40 years has been a total RAT HOLE for money and a DISASTER.
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO THROW MY (future) GRANDKIDS FUTURE AWAY. We already have trains, it’s Amtrak - and it’s only use is for old, rich, people to party on.
If you want these vaunted high-speed trains, then find PRIVATE FINANCING for it. I’ll even support you in clearing the right-of-ways - even liability caps. But GOOD LUCK WITH THAT - the numbers simply DO NOT WORK.
Being a RINO is not about if you do or don’t like trains, it is about if you want the government to finance, build, and subsidize rail systems. I am sure everyone here would have no problem at all with private rail.
I like the train, too, and I don’t see why trains in themselves are offensive to Freepers.
I think - as my Congressman, John Mica stated - that they should be private businesses, although given the nature of the beast, some public funding may be involved. After all, highways are publicly funded, and I don’t notice Freepers complaining about that, except when we get the bridge-to-nowhere or other pork projects.
But they have to be trains that are commercially viable and go between points to which people really want or need to travel, not like the Orlando to Tampa high speed rail, which is clearly pork and not needed in any way and which Mica is fighting. On the other hand, he’s very much in favor of a Florida coast passenger rail from Jacksonville to Miami, which would do a lot for the towns along the route and also for the traffic problems in and around Miami. Flagler made his fortune (well, one of his fortunes) on the East Coast Florida Railway, which was essentially the thing that let Miami and Florida in general boom, back before train travel dropped off.
I think the problem is when the government gets into management of the railroads. Amtrak, which is another one of those hybrid institutions like the Post Office, in the NE should be a money-making operation because of the high ridership, but somehow it’s not.
Still, if Freepers don’t want any money spent on trains (which are a fast, efficient and safe way of travel and have no political implications), they should apply the same standard to highways and go out and construct their own personal interstates.
lea, no one is calling you a RINO because you like to ride the train . . . it’s because of the dependency of Government Spending vs. private capital. This country is flat broke and yet our representatives continue to believe their only function is to spend more.
Y'mean, like-- canals?
We did that already. They got replaced by--trains.
Why can't normal people accept that trains have been replaced by personal vehicles...that's progress, as they say.
I commute by train to work. But I also don’t want these high-speed rail boondoggles. Rail needs to be able to pay for itself.
I hope you are not infering I was supporting this idiotic idea.
Moving freight long distances inexpensively is the job of trains and ships. Moving people long distances is the job of air planes augmented by these pesky vehicles called automobiles IMO.
Dumb and dumber.
While the poor saps in the rest of the nation pay for it.
“I think - as my Congressman, John Mica stated - that they should be private businesses, although given the nature of the beast, some public funding may be involved.”
Well, there you go. Like I said, I’m cool with the government clearing the right-of-way (even though some would argue, justifiably, against even that), and capping liability. But this ‘beast’ is a beast because it cannot even come close to paying for itself, or even sustaining itself if the feds pay the whole cost.
There are BIG PROBLEMS with choo-choo trains. The biggest has to do with each end of the train and what people have to do there. No different than flying. You need to get to the airport, go through security, land at the destination, and then figure out a plan from there. Often renting a car.
THAT’S THE RUB. Go see what car rentals cost, and then simply ask yourself if it is worth all of that HASSLE, COST, and TIME...when driving for 90 minutes from Tampa to Orlando accomplishes the same thing.
You have to be rational about this...because each of those potential train customers will make the SAME CALCULATION. And if the numbers don’t work...guess what, THEY DRIVE...and unless you raise the price of gas to $20 per gallon, they will ALWAYS DRIVE.
So what’s the point. How about building some nukes if we want to spend government money? Maybe adding a few highway lanes (roughly 5% of a train, and much, much, more capacity)? There are lots of ways to INVEST money, but there are also lots of ways to WASTE money...how about we invest - if we really want government to spend money?
I replied to a specific comment. It was about the weakness of people who don’t fly.
As a practical matter I wouldn’t get too upset about a rail project if we weren’t bankrupt.
But we are bankrupt, and nothing about high speed rail will help to change that. To pump billions into it, while we’re bankrupt, while shutting off energy development, which is the engine of the economy, is entirely backward.
Want to get the economy moving? Bulldoze regulations that make it excrutiatingly difficult to build any kind of power plant or factory. Do that, and leave the boondoggles alone.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.