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

[DominionSeraph]

We have seen what this type of behavior brings about in Europe. It has led to the deaths of billions of people.

Errr... well, at least you're not a denier.

 

[K1052]

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

The purposed high speed rail connecting the two cities would take 3 hours and the purposed ticket prices are $100.

So not only does it cost twice the amount of flying but it takes 3x as long.

So you arrive at the airport at the exact time of your departure and make it onto the plane?

Wow!

 

[DucatiMonster696]

He speaks of a different form of Nationalism. That form is where the People work together to make their Nation better.

Yet that style of Nationalism only seems to come out to support bad and ill conceived projects which are designed to create short term political gains but end up burning through tax payer monies by pushing on with a bad idea.

If CA is any measure to go off spending a proposed 4.3 billions dollars (who knows what the real cost will be in the end) to build a 58 mile "high speed" rail line from Merced to Fresno is a good example of how bad this idea is in the end.

 

[sandorski]

Yet that style of Nationalism only seems to come out to support bad and ill conceived projects which are designed to create short term political gains but end up burning through tax payer monies by pushing on with a bad idea.

If CA is any measure to go off spending 4.3 billions dollars to build a 58 mile "high speed" rail line from Merced to Fresno is good example of how bad this idea is in the end.

The railway can be there for 100's of years. It's not a waste of money.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

The railway can be there for 100's of years. It's not a waste of money.

How profitable and well used is Amtrak for commuting proposes in the US?

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

I'm mostly curious about winter. From about mid november to maybe late March or so, this whole region is covered in snow and the temperature is usually between -10 and -20C. It'll sometimes go to -40 but I wouldn't expect anyone to shop on those days.
I just can't imagine how bad that would suck. Having to buy food every 1-2 days and hauling it home on the bus. Even with a car, I hate shopping for groceries in winter. Those shopping carts don't work worth shit on snow.

We have these great things called clothes that we use in Europe, the colder it gets the more of them you put on, it's an awesome invention.

You can shop just fine without a car and if need be you can get a taxi four days on a month if you really need to shop a lot that often.

Before i left Sheffield last time i set up an account to shop online and have it delivered, it cost £10 regardless of how much you ordered, that is another way...

There are solutions for those who want to use them, it's just not for those who are hellbent in discarding every possible solution to justify their current habits.

 

[K1052]

Yet that style of Nationalism only seems to come out to support bad and ill conceived projects which are designed to create short term political gains but end up burning through tax payer monies by pushing on with a bad idea.

If CA is any measure to go off spending a proposed 4.3 billions dollars (who knows what the real cost will be in the end) to build a 58 mile "high speed" rail line from Merced to Fresno is a good example of how bad this idea is in the end.

Since it's not possible to expand freeways through urban centers to the required capacities there is little choice other than investing in rail. You think that entire neighborhoods can be bulldozed to make room these days like back in the 50s and 60s?

Though most conservatives won't be willing to admit that point until they are literally asphyxiating on exhaust fumes (while the Tea Party will have us all riding horses in 10 years).

 

[Chaotic42]

I'm mostly curious about winter. From about mid november to maybe May or so, this whole region is covered in snow and the temperature is usually between -10 and -20C. It'll sometimes go to -40 but I wouldn't expect anyone to shop on those days.
I just can't imagine how bad that would suck. Having to buy food every 1-2 days and hauling it home on the bus. Even with a car, I hate shopping for groceries in winter. Those shopping carts don't work worth shit on snow.

This is what all of Canada and maybe half of the US looks like in April. Take a trip to detroit some time. If the criminals don't get ya, good ol winter will.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bzDEiUSHBI&feature=related

Heh, I was thinking that it was too warm here to ride a bike often. When the heat index is 120F, you'll end up sweating all over the produce.

America is not set up for bicycles. Many of our cities are clustered and often the only real way to travel to the grocery store is either by interstate or major highway which are both impossible on bikes. Everything is connected by safe 30 MPH roads. We're built for cars, let's work on making them more energy efficient rather that trying to redesign our currently functionial immense infrastructure with money we don't have.

 

[sandorski]

How profitable and well used is Amtrak for commuting proposes in the US?

Can't tell you, but that point is moot. Should Toyota get out of the Automobile business because Chrysler is going under? Amtraks' failures are not indicative of Rail failure.

 

[Brainonska511]

How profitable and well used is Amtrak for commuting proposes in the US?

How profitable are roads? For all the complaints about Amtrak/railway subsidies, we dump TONS of money into airports, railways, and ports.

And as K1052 puts it below, is profit the be-all-end-all of mass transit? I think not. It's more about moving large amounts of people in an efficient manner. You can only cram so many cars onto the road and so many arrivals/departures into airports...

How do you guys buy food and stuff?

If you're in a good city and live close enough to any sort of mart, you can buy a cart and walk, or buy into car sharing, or have your groceries delivered.

 

[dmcowen674]

If they made the trains Intermodals it would work, otherwise a waste of money in the U.S.

 

[K1052]

How profitable and well used is Amtrak for commuting proposes in the US?

The farebox is not the end all be all measure of rail transit success. Pretty much all transit systems in the world lose money.

 

[K1052]

How profitable are roads? For all the complaints about Amtrak/railway subsidies, we dump TONS of money into airports, railways, and ports.

Some people will argue that only the users of roads pay for them, thus they are profitable or at least break even. Never mind the fact that general revenue funds have been transferred for years in to pay for road upkeep/projects on state and federal levels.

 

[Brainonska511]

Some people will argue that only the users of roads pay for them, thus they are profitable or at least break even. Never mind the fact that general revenue funds have been transferred for years in to pay for road upkeep/projects on state and federal levels.

LALALA fingers in my ears LALALA

 

[Chaotic42]

Some people will argue that only the users of roads pay for them, thus they are profitable or at least break even. Never mind the fact that general revenue funds have been transferred for years in to pay for road upkeep/projects on state and federal levels.

Everyone uses roads though. The vast majority of goods and services that you use touch public roads.

 

[K1052]

Everyone uses roads though. The vast majority of goods and services that you use touch public roads.

But lots of things travel on roads that I don't want and shouldn't have to pay for, since I don't use or buy them. If roads can't pay for themselves we shouldn't have them.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Can't tell you, but that point is moot. Should Toyota get out of the Automobile business because Chrysler is going under? Amtraks' failures are not indicative of Rail failure.

Yet rail as a means of mass transportation for the average American living in a major city or in the burbs in the US is failure along with Amtrak. You cannot deny that point.

Compared to roads and air travel in this nation rail is not a viable solution. You'd be better off taking that money spent on some bullshit "highspeed" rail system and instead use it to help fiance a massive series of hydrogen or electric refueling stations for alt. powered cars across cities and towns of a given state (or around the nation).

 

[DucatiMonster696]

How profitable are roads? For all the complaints about Amtrak/railway subsidies, we dump TONS of money into airports, railways, and ports.

Roads are used by the vast majority of Americans. Airports are also used by the vast majority of Americans for long distance travel. The cost of maintaining and building roads and airports are actually more inline with the amount of usage they get from the average American as they commute everyday on them as compared to our rail system and the money spent keeping Amtrak afloat.

 

[Chaotic42]

But lots of things travel on roads that I don't want and shouldn't have to pay for, since I don't use or buy them. If roads can't pay for themselves we shouldn't have them.

I don't have a problem with more roads being tolled. Do you really think that a high speed rail system will do any better or be any cheaper? Why start over when we have a workable option in place?

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Everyone uses roads though. The vast majority of goods and services that you use touch public roads.

If railroads could carry them, that would probably be a better idea. I don't really know how much goods are transported on US railroads but most of it could probably be transported that way for the most part of the transportation.

The repairs would diminish on public roads and there wouldn't be much more wear on railroad transports.

I just can't seem to find a good argument against railroad transportation, hell i can go from London to Greece without having to get off of the train and you're telling me that you have more ground to cover with less passengers traveling? You have to realise that most who travel at all don't travel interEU trains, but local city trains, that is where the high numbers come from, yet the interEU trains are still profitable while costing a lot less than driving would have.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

I don't have a problem with more roads being tolled. Do you really think that a high speed rail system will do any better or be any cheaper? Why start over when we have a workable option in place?

Again, you mean a medium speed rail system and yes, it would do better and it would be cheaper, the US isn't special even though you might be convinced that it is.

 

[Chaotic42]

Again, you mean a medium speed rail system and yes, it would do better and it would be cheaper, the US isn't special even though you might be convinced that it is.

So give me an idea, what kind of distances and what size communities are you talking about linking together? That's really the question. Rail might be a good idea in the Northeast, Southwest, and maybe Florida, but the rest of our country is mostly sparsely populated. I can get behind California setting up a big rail network in Los Angeles, but stringing rail lines between every large (say 250,000 people) city in the US would be very expensive and would take forever. Every single town, landowner, and hippy would sue for every mile of track laid down near them.

If we were building a new infrastructure from scratch, I could see the value in running separate lines alongside current freight lines. I live near New Orleans. Here's a Google Map link. What cities or communities would you suggest connecting?

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

So give me an idea, what kind of distances and what size communities are you talking about linking together? That's really the question. Rail might be a good idea in the Northeast, Southwest, and maybe Florida, but the rest of our country is mostly sparsely populated. I can get behind California setting up a big rail network in Los Angeles, but stringing rail lines between every large (say 250,000 people) city in the US would be very expensive and would take forever. Every single town, landowner, and hippy would sue for every mile of track laid down near them.

If we were building a new infrastructure from scratch, I could see the value in running separate lines alongside current freight lines. I live near New Orleans. Here's a Google Map link. What cities or communities would you suggest connecting?

From Piteå in the north to Wales, most of Russia, Greece in the south and most of Asia too.

People much smarter than me could work that out and make it happen, they have on our continent which is a FUCKLOAD bigger than your itty bitty continent.

 

[Chaotic42]

From Piteå in the north to Wales, most of Russia, Greece in the south and most of Asia too.

People much smarter than me could work that out and make it happen, they have on our continent which is a FUCKLOAD bigger than your itty bitty continent.

So how many stops would there be? Are we talking about a few per large city? It sounds like exactly what our airline system already does. If it's supposed to replace road trips, there will have to be several stops so that people could get close to their destinations.

Listen, I'm all for more efficiency. I'm just not convinced that a nationwide rail system would be any more efficient than the system we're using, and I haven't seen anything (not that I've really been digging) that provides any assurance that it would be. I just hear, "Well, it works in Europe".

 

[alphatarget1]

You get a bike and use it, you have bikes in the US? You know how they work? They are not just for competitive racing by EPO injecting retards you know?

Hey asshole, I was only there for 5 months and I didn't want to get a bike. I bike almost every day to school/work now that I'm back in the US.