Hmmmm. Didn't we used to call these something else?
Posted on 07/25/2015 10:44:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
Yep, and sadly to say some FReepers praise toll roads because there just isn’t enough money for highways any longer.
Folks, wake the hell up.
I understand they are raiding the highway fund to pay for light rail and they are misusing it in billions of dollars of other ways. Get rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse, and there would be more than enough to maintain the highways.
Light rail is just another way of distributing the loot and laundering some of the money back into Democrat coffers.
http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=310
The gang problem on Portland’s light rail is a big problem.
Excerpt:
The light rail gave drug dealers and other inner-city criminals easy access to the suburbs, and soon they were intimidating and assaulting riders.
Goldschmidt failed to foresee that the cost would be far higher than originally projected. To make up some of the difference, ......Plus, of course, it cut its budget for transit police.
Hmmmm. Didn't we used to call these something else?
Wow! A color photo of a Type H.
Our esteemed career politician RINO loser Mica helped push through Sunrail (I call it Slumrail) and instantly graffiti sprang up along the route. Lots of new paint now.
Every place that has a light rail has a burden on its taxpayers. The riders should pay for the ride...not be subsidized by others. Light rail is yet another LIB wet dream.
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(Photo credit: Michael Barera)
That's like no government at all...why that is like liberty.
“Actual ridership of light rails is consistently much lower than bureaucrats’ overly optimistic estimates. The Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD) projected that the West Rail Line would carry 29,000 people each week in its first year of operation. Yet, the actual ridership was only about one third of that projection. Even this was only achieved by the RTD cutting off six bus lines so people were forced to take the light rail. After so many long term bus riders’ (many from low income families) complaints, RTD was forced to resume those bus lines. So nowadays, the West Rail Line runs pretty empty.”
Why, heck, I’ve seen 15 or 20 people at a time on one of these things as I DRIVE to my destination, which is almost always no where near a light rail station.
The big problem comes when the government agency running the system can't pay the operating costs to run the service. This is happening in some older cities with growing operating costs for their systems (Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are good examples of this). The Federal government offers big matching funds to build the system, but once a system is built the state or local government is on its own.
Nice picture of trolley with overhead electric wires. BTW who knew that companies dedicated to making shoulder pads existed?
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Washington, D.C. street car track construction, circa take a guess. This was the underground center cable drive system. And most likely the ones in light rail proponents dreams. No nasty overhead wires, trolleys having the right of way over autos, no emissions, etc.
I grew up riding on District trolleys. As a kid I loved them. Nicest way to travel in the city in early fifties. The ride down North Capitol street to Union Station was under an arch of big old trees with just glimpse of the sky, Made in the shade.
What could be nicer? Well as a kid I was unaware of the underground cable ways that were necessary for the system to work. As shown in the photo below, there was quite a bit of construction underground. A major reason the system never really expanded beyond pre-war limits. Too darn expensive when laborers were making less than fifty dollars a week, with about $2 or $2.50 in deductions. Not to mention, that while under construction it involved detouring almost all vehicular traffic during the post war housing boom extending outward from the city center.
Driving was no fun in the rain or snow, trying to brake on the slick rails, same with turns. Lots of small accidents and some major ones, of course due to the tracks.
Works in Disney Land, real world, not so much. Tourists there expect to pay through the nose and do.
I remember riding the trolley in Philadelphia when I was very young.
And shoulder pads have to come from somewhere!
when your hood is now a target of free-ranging urban ferals, taggers and break-in artists, it’s hard to see how the property values increase (though there may be some lucky exceptions, I’m sure
Let's give picks and shovels to unemployed welfare recipients and have do the trenching for streetcar lines. We might not build a lot of streetcar mileage, but I'll bet we'd massively reduce long term welfarism, at no incremental cost to the taxpayer.
Sounds all well and good until the back injury claims under ObamaCare skyrocket like a Saturn V....RIP
Colorado Ping ( Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)
Not a cable drive system. Ordinances in DC prohibited overhead lines on streetcars. In place of the trolley wire is something similar to a third rail system, where the power rail lies beneath the center rails. Power return is still via the running rails.
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