Posted on 02/14/2011 5:38:00 PM PST by george76
Hailed as a high-speed road to the future, a jobs program and a symbol of America's dedication to innovation, President Obama proposed Monday spending $8 billion on a bullet train -- a down payment on a nationwide network that will cost $58 billion over the next six years.
But in the one state where the federal high-speed rail project is underway, critics say money is being misspent, ridership studies are inflated, the route is politically corrupted and the system will never be self supporting.
"They don't know where they're going to build it, they don't have a mile of right of way under possession, it is not shovel ready, it is not even engineer ready,"...
The first leg of the project is slated for the middle of Central Valley -- not between major cities, or congested freeway corridors like San Francisco and San Jose or Orange County and Los Angeles. The Central Valley site is between Borden -- a point on the map where no one lives -- and Corcoran, a town where half the residents will never board a train because they're in prison.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
He's leavin'
(leavin')
leavin' on that bullet train to nowhere
(leavin' on that bullet train -- WHOO WHOO!)
You greedy, ungrateful little tax thieves need to shut the hell up and fork it over!!!!
/sarc
Wrong, cub reporter breath. The 58 billion is for California's train alone. And by the time it is done, if it ever is, it will cost 100 billion. Think "Big Dig."
But from Corcoran??? Giving Charles Manson a ride??? The only thing in Corcoran is the prison!!! To Madera??? To offload on a bus to San Francisco??? What idiot decided to build this train???
Winning the Future by resurrecting 19th Century technology.
What, you can’t appreciate how poetic it is to have a train passing a prison?
I’ve felt that one place a rail system (cargo rail) would make sense would be from the L.A. ocean shipping ports and some point outside of the “smog valley.” Instead of a bevy of diesel-snorting trucks, there would be one or two trains (maybe even electric ones) that would load up right at portside, and the trucks would load up outside the smog zone.
But this is much different from a “bullet train” that few would board.
"I got drunk the day my momma got out of prison,
I went to pick her up in the pouring rain.
But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck,
She got run over by a danged ol' train."
“Good morning California how are you?
Don’t you know me I’m your native son,
I’m the train they call The bullet train to nowhere,
I’ll be gone five boring miles when the day is done”
Willie Green would love this route... with an empty train to nowhere!
100 billion hell that will not buy the right of way.
It will never get built... even after millions poured down the drain studying its feasibility.
LOL, they have a train terminal at the port, trouble with ca, is it takes ten or eleven locomotives, to get a big train out of the basin, and just as many breaking to get one in.
They are already working on this. It's called the Alameda Corridor East
It's been disrupting traffic around here for a number of years as they do grade separations, etc.
The Japanese high speed rail is profitable... it goes through heavily populated areas. Its not a money pit.
The California train would go through an area no one lives in. It would make more sense to build it up the coast from Los Angeles but the NIMBY syndrome and politics killed the only financially viable route.
That’s one reason why I said electric — the incoming downhill train could actually generate electricity through dynamic braking, easing the energy cost of getting the uphill train out.
Keynesian economics claims that squandering billions will help employment and therefore the economy.
So, this will work out great as long as Keynes was right. Sadly, he wasn’t and any economist worth the title knows it.
If rail really would give our economy a shot in the arm, you don’t need studies to justify it - just build the damn thing!
But the proponents know its a money loser. They hide the truth from the sheeple, who are sold it on a switch and bait scheme.
I invite you to Google it on the Internet - not ONE high speed rail line has been built or will be built anywhere AT COST in the US in the foreseeable future.
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