what the heck is it with Dems and high speed trains?

[CADsortaGUY]

So your original comment was untrue then.

No.

 

[K1052]

No.

Yes.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Yes.

He was for it before he was against it!

He's a true politician.

 

[Fear No Evil]

LOL at the progressive's and their choo-choo trains.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Yes.

Nope. I have no problem with Dems supporting REAL high speed trains - I laugh at leftists who buy into the slow trains because BHO and others call them "high speed". Being fine with this does not mean I would or should support such a boondoggle.

 

[Fear No Evil]

We have a lot of unemployed construction labor that could be employed at reasonable wages instead. I would rather it to be used to build high speed rail than sitting idle, but with conditions that it's not used to expand government workforce on a permanent basis, and there is very competitive bidding and oversight to avoid enriching private contractors or labor beyond market prices for their services.

Unfortunately the unions would never allow it. You think non-union labor would be used to build a national HSR solution? You interested in a bridge I own in NYC?

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

LOL at the progressive's and their choo-choo trains.

LOL at the retard not realising that steam driven trains (which is what choo choo trains are, the name comes from the sound you utter retard) are long gone...

Perhaps if someone showed him a modern railway after his mum lets him out of the basement he'll get it, either that or he'll stand there by the rail road screaming "choo choo".

I can see it now, the little twat standing there next to the railroad jumping up and down and screaming choo choo at the passing trains, it's kinda cute...

 

[nyker96]

It might make sense in urban regions of the country (ie the Northeast) where you have several major cities relatively close together, but other than that, airplanes have left long-distance passenger travel by train behind.

I think the idea with train is to cut gasoline usage through out the nation. Airplane don't do that since they use a lot of fuels. This is aimed to make US less dependent on foreign oil that of course has the side effect of increasing national security. One other goal with trains is they haul a lot of goods for cheap, transportation costs can take up as much as 30% of commercial product costs, making them lower can help US businesses to compete better.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Unfortunately the unions would never allow it. You think non-union labor would be used to build a national HSR solution? You interested in a bridge I own in NYC?

No, best is to not try anything at all, best is to say choo choo and wait for the train...

Yes, the unions would allow that reasonable wages were paid for work done.

You could always import chinamen to do the job though, it's not the first time and it's not like it's not already being done in most other sectors.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

you have to build it first to find out how expensive and maintenance needy it is. Then cry and complain that it's too expensive and costly to run. How many millions of dollars per mile will it cost to build??

It already costs 4.3 billion for 58 miles in CA. Now take into account the additional billions more needed to be spent to actually connect SF to LA and the cost just skyrockets. As I stated earlier a better use for such funding would be to actually establish alternative fuel refueling stations and thus lay down the infrastructure across the state (along side other US states which are debating this idea) to make alt. fueled cars (e.g. Hydrogen fueled cars) a viable solution for daily commuters, soccer moms and long distance car travelers instead of dumping money into an idiotic version Amtrak 2.0 - The Springfield monorail edition.

 

[Throckmorton]

What the heck is it with Republicans and highways?

 

[Brainonska511]

It already costs 4.3 billion for 58 miles in CA. Now take into account the additional billions more needed to be spent to actually connect SF to LA and the cost just skyrockets. As I stated earlier a better use for such funding would be to actually establish alternative fuel refueling stations and thus lay down the infrastructure across the state (along side other US states which are debating this idea) to make alt. fueled cars (e.g. Hydrogen fueled cars) a viable solution for daily commuters, soccer moms and long distance car travelers instead of dumping money into an idiotic version Amtrak 2.0 - The Springfield monorail edition.

But we go back to the problem of only being able to fit so many cars on the road. And why are these ideas mutually exclusive? We can build better intercity infrastructure at the same time as looking towards alternate fuel sources.

 

[Darwin333]

It's not going to help at all, a high speed train takes about as much energy as every passenger on that train riding alone in an electric car does.

The reality is that Obama, like any other politician in any oil-rich nation cannot really go against big oil in his own nation.

Honda has made a perfectly fine hydrogen fuel cell version of an electric car, it's four seats regular sedan, it will run about 500 kilometers per tank, it's carbon neutral and while the price RIGHT NOW on hydrogen is about the same as for petrol, it will cost one 50'th of it when a majority of vehicles start using it instead of petrol.

That said, the US does NOT want anything to replace the regular combustion engine personal vehicles for obvious reasons.

That said, the medium speed trains you are planning (anything below 250mph isn't a high speed train) might very well be of good use considering your logistics and as anyone living in Europe knows, owning a car and living in the city is retarded and providing those who have to drive to work (when there are plenty doing so) with alternate means will cut down on the costs as well as on the environmental costs.

We've been doing that in the EU for about 50 years now, welcome to the future.

The US is geographically twice the size of the entire EU combined. As has been stated already, trains work great when you have large population centers relatively close to each other such as many parts of the EU. While there are some places in the US that, IF properly done (not a chance in hell) AND if the rest of the public transportation in those areas is properly done AND the costs are low enough, it would be very feasible. Even a great high speed rail system can't be successful if the rest of the transportation infrastructure in the cities it connects sucks ass (unless you are talking about relatively long distance travel which would probably take us a decade just to draw up the plans and even then has to compete with air). In short, I wouldn't bet on a single one of those requirements being done properly with our current political system (Fed, state and local).

Hell, we can't even build freaking power transmission lines over long distances to take advantage of renewable energy resources.

We need to spend a trillion dollars on the grid NOT high speed/med. speed rail. We don't have a trillion to do either though so I guarantee that whatever we do will be half assed and the end product will not be worth the investment.

 

[Darwin333]

But we go back to the problem of only being able to fit so many cars on the road. And why are these ideas mutually exclusive? We can build better intercity infrastructure at the same time as looking towards alternate fuel sources.

Because we are broke.

 

[Carmen813]

Always felt high speed rails biggest benefit would be for cargo transportation, not passengers. We still move a ton of freight around in the U.S.

 

[Darwin333]

No, best is to not try anything at all, best is to say choo choo and wait for the train...

Yes, the unions would allow that reasonable wages were paid for work done.

You could always import chinamen to do the job though, it's not the first time and it's not like it's not already being done in most other sectors.

Not anymore. These days we EXPORT labor to China and import our cheap labor from Mexico/S. America.

As far as Unions and reasonable wages, completely depends on the Union/location. I just met a guy at a seminar one of our manufacturers had in Denver that has to pay roofers $100/h (with burden and benefits, actual cost to the employer without overhead or profit) to install solar racking which is basically a relatively easy erector set on certain projects because of the unions. We are talking about a weeks worth of training or so and a few months experience to be decently efficient at. That is NOT a reasonable wage it is simply insane.

Granted, it isn't that bad for the actual company because they, like most other contractors, calculate profit as a percentage of the overall cost of the job. They make a lot more money on those projects for the same amount of work but the actual customer gets boned and the market often suffers because less jobs are done. This is especially true in markets that are not necessary, everyone needs a roof but no one needs solar.

 

[alphatarget1]

I think the idea with train is to cut gasoline usage through out the nation. Airplane don't do that since they use a lot of fuels. This is aimed to make US less dependent on foreign oil that of course has the side effect of increasing national security. One other goal with trains is they haul a lot of goods for cheap, transportation costs can take up as much as 30% of commercial product costs, making them lower can help US businesses to compete better.

There is not a lot of demand for rail in the US. You can build it but we'd be wasting energy running empty trains.

 

[PingSpike]

Doing things like these in American doesn't work because even if they some how get passed and started, all the entrenched players will assure that that it fails. First comes all the people bitching and suing and bribing, forcing the project to shrink to the size of pointlessness and probably divert around the areas where it would do the most good.

Assuming some one pushes forward with the new impotent project plan (they probably will since they spent so much money defending against lawsuits they'll commit the logical error of throwing good money after bad) the projects cost will already likely be over the original and it will balloon further and take longer to complete because it always does. The original quotes were lies designed to secure the work, which everyone knows but continues to pretend that this time will be different. Or perhaps some one's brother owns a construction company.

So when its done, it doesn't connect to the places people actually need it, people are already mad about all the money spent on it and the rates are twice as high (because it cost 5 times as much to build as planned) while the trip takes twice as long as driving because its to far from population centers. People obviously urinate in it and there's no money to pay to clean the thing because people aren't riding it. The project fails. Some people conclude that trains can't work. Others conclude that we didn't try hard enough. The truth is the project could have worked in theory but everyone forgot the existing bureaucracy is designed to destroy all the these projects.

Here are some very small scale examples of this in action in my own back yard:

Costco applies for a permit to add gas pumps to their store. Local gas station owners appeal permit and the project is scuttled.

Internet provider applies for permit to put up a Wifi tower. A housing development nearby organizes against it, claiming that wifi causes brain cancer (I'm not making this up, obviously the real reason is the tower may have blocked their view) and the project is canceled.

Those are small examples, this is a huge one. You'll have everyone from from parking garage owners, gas station owners, highway repair unions to historic preservation societies and environmental groups (bizarre, but always happens) and other people you wouldn't even think would care but have some tiny reason to object.

I think the only reason Europe has trains is because they built theirs before their bureaucracy caught up to them.

 

[Brainonska511]

I think the only reason Europe has trains is because they built theirs before their bureaucracy caught up to them.

We need a modern-day Robert Moses to get some non-road infrastructure pushed through.

 

[bfdd]

Nope. I have no problem with Dems supporting REAL high speed trains - I laugh at leftists who buy into the slow trains because BHO and others call them "high speed". Being fine with this does not mean I would or should support such a boondoggle.

Definitely need some high speed rail like the Chinese have been building lately.

 

[her209]

It takes me under an hour to get from San Francisco to LA at a cost of $45.

That's an hour of flight time. You're not accounting for the time that you to get to the airport early, which will add 1-2 hours to travel time. Not a big deal if you're traveling long distance, but kills any time savings if traveling shorter distances. Secondly, the $45 ticket you're quoting needs to be purchased a week sometimes two weeks in advanced.

 

[Hacp]

Trains can work. However, if you have union labor doing the work, it becomes too expensive.

 

[Jadow]

I don't know but they're trying to ram one through in Wisconsin too.

Milwaukee to Madison train, cost = 800 million, operating cost per year = 8 million

The new governer elect Walker (R) is going to kill the train, and the current governer has stopped work on it. Thank God.

So basically the fed govt will pay for the train (STIMULUS!!), then the wisconsin taxpayers 98% of whom will never once ride that train will have to pay the 8 mill per year after that.

The thing is, Milwaukee to Madison is only about an hour drive on the interstate, so gas money would cost about 8 bucks each way. How much do you think a train ticket will cost?

This train = FAIL

 

[Hacp]

We have a lot of unemployed construction labor that could be employed at reasonable wages instead. I would rather it to be used to build high speed rail than sitting idle, but with conditions that it's not used to expand government workforce on a permanent basis, and there is very competitive bidding and oversight to avoid enriching private contractors or labor beyond market prices for their services.

Define reasonable wages? 10 dollars an hour is reasonable to me. I'm guessing your idea of reasonable would be 20 dollars with full benefits.

 

[bfdd]

Trains can work. However, if you have union labor doing the work, it becomes too expensive.

Should just make it a government program to get people back to work, fuck the unions. Then slowly privatize parts of it. I wouldn't have an issue with that. Work-fare and they get to do something incredibly useful.