High Speed Rail

[moreluck]

The Victorville mayor can envision all he wants, but Victorville is just a beefed up Baker without the world's largest thermometer!

I was always amazed at the nmber of restaurants that Victorville already has...............maybe he just wants to get customers inside those restaurants.

They have a darn good Starbucks....easy off & easy on the I-15

 

[wkmac]

You would think, since the benefit of this Vegas train would be all the casinos, that they could put up all the money to build this bullet train to bring the gamblers to their casinos. But, guess what? They know a losing proposition when they see one!

Very good point and you are equally correct that this proposition is a loser but only if you can't shed the risks off onto someone else. In doing that, then the upside is protected and if over time it comes doesn't in a winner, make note of the comments by Victorville's mayor which IMO would suggest that public policy would be used as a tool of intervention to "force" people to use this rail service. And when you also have federal officials and I'm betting State officials too along with powerful business interests, if this isn't a success by natural market actions, it will be made a success by the point of the gun otherwise known as gov't policy.

And if you think this is just an isolated manifestation as a result of the Obama election, you're fooling yourselves. Even Solyndra had it's roots in the Bush adminstration with it's Energy Policy Act of 2005' and then after Gronet Technologies changed it's name to Solyndra, then Solyndra started the federal loan process (see Energy Policy Act 2005) which after an extensive vetting process by the Bush Energy Department in Oct. 2007' placed Solyndra among the final 16 companies to potentially receive taxpayer funding.

Obama wanted all the gravy when he used Solyndra publicly to pat himself on the back for political reasons but once the gravy spoiled, then his administration wanted to try to pull out the truth of the process to shed the blame off himself. Had he been honest upfront and gave the Bush administration the credit of starting the process and how it worked, when it all went bad, the full transparency would have a knowledgeable public also properly placing the blame across party lines.

Once again, the hollow promise of Obama's transparency came back to bite him in his own arse!

 

[moreluck]

R & D always involves some risks and when things don't go well, people throw in the towel and go on to bigger & better things. You know, the old "beating a dead horse" thing.

Obama seems to think....just throw more money at it and it will work. He doesn't even view the passenger trains already out there losing money hand over fist. That should show him.....just because it goes faster doesn't mean it'll be appreciated at all!

His next idea for America will probably be an encyclopedia set of books, 20 in all, leather bound to keep in your home library that will provide information to your family. And to keep it up to date, a yearbook will be issued yearly at a small additional charge.

He will fail to investigate that ancient encyclopedias are used to heighten displays of pottery and such at high levels.....like above kitchen cabinets. That's where mine are.

 

[wkmac]

R & D always involves some risks and when things don't go well, people throw in the towel and go on to bigger & better things. You know, the old "beating a dead horse" thing.

Obama seems to think....just throw more money at it and it will work. He doesn't even view the passenger trains already out there losing money hand over fist. That should show him.....just because it goes faster doesn't mean it'll be appreciated at all!

His next idea for America will probably be an encyclopedia set of books, 20 in all, leather bound to keep in your home library that will provide information to your family. And to keep it up to date, a yearbook will be issued yearly at a small additional charge.

He will fail to investigate that ancient encyclopedias are used to heighten displays of pottery and such at high levels.....like above kitchen cabinets. That's where mine are.

More,

The sad thing is our entire transportation structure from cars, to trains, to jets is all built on socialized costs and always has been. Obama's a laughing stock and worthless as tits on a boar hog but I'm not foolish enough to think that the whole world turned upside down the moment he was sworn in as President.

Also accepting that all forms of transportation in this country are heavily socialized to begin with and by no means a result of true market actions nor have ever been in our modern sense, William Lind of The American Conservative's Center for Public Transportation makes a strong case based on economic costs that rail systems in cost per mile is far cheaper than the cost of roads and it's real costs per mile. Lind's Rail Against the Machine offers his perspective of the ideal of cars verses rail argument and on other grounds I might argue the state's involvement in transportation in the first place but in the current model of transportation socialization, I find Lind's argument having real merit when you start considering the real total costs that we pay as a society and even on the individual level which is how Lind is looking at it. And on the present premise, he would be right.

Once again 804 and his NYer friends will pay for roads in Georgia so to speak regardless of which political party or which side of the isle controls public policy when the far more cost effective use of public monies might well be to use existing rail lines towards public transportation means.

 

[moreluck]

fromApril 18............

LAO says no to high-speed rail | billion, lao, project - Opinion - The Orange County Register

Then from yesterday......


Congress poised to reject high-speed rail funding | McClatchy

 

[wkmac]

Going forward, the pressure for rail transportation and other public transportation means may well increase because of less and less people even having a driver's license. Tony Dutzik of the Frontier Group has conducted a public study entitled, "Transportation and the New Generation" where he documents that 26% of 16 to 34 year olds don't even have a driver's license, up from 21% in 2001'.

Some of the facts documented in the study.

1) Miles per capita driven peaked in 2004' and have dropped 6% since then.

2) From 2001' to 2009', 16 to 34 year olds annual driving dropped 23% from 10,300 miles annually to 7,900 miles.

3) In 2009, 16 to 34-year-olds as a whole took 24 percent more bike trips than they took in 2001

4) In 2009, 16 to 34-year-olds walked to destinations 16 percent more frequently than did 16 to 34-year-olds living in 2001.

5) From 2001 to 2009, the number of passenger-miles traveled by 16 to 34-year-olds on public transit increased by 40 percent.

This also raises the question, if the 16 to 34 demographic is not only driving less with the trend suggesting to continue and if future 16 to 34 year olds at least maintain the trend of drivers license, not only should the auto makers be scared to death, one also questions how much oil in the future we will need? Not only will future cars get even better gas mileage but the number of people owning and driving cars in the US may continue to decline dropping even further the need for ever greater supplies of oil. This is another reason I think the Keystone pipeline is all about China and always was regardless of everything else but that's another thread.

 

[moreluck]

When I was 16 there was nothing I wanted more than my license!!

I have 2 granddaughters (17 & 18) who could care less and haven't even asked about driving....but they live where the public transportation is reliable and efficient. (city bus)

 

[wkmac]

Interesting fight in Texas over a purposed high speed rail from Dallas to Houston alleged to be built totally by a private concern.

Senate Bill Targeting Bullet Train Project Advances