Stop listening to Europe, stop listening to the conservatives, do what has worked in the past. What got us out of the Great Depression was production: massive industrial production to support the allies in World War Two.
We need production for this country now. We need to build rapid rail to catch up to those allies from World War Two. France has the TGV. China is building its rapid rail system. It’s time we joined the movement. We need to go back to the future and become a country that builds things. It’ll create jobs. It’ll catch us up to the rest of the world. It’ll cut our reliance on oil. It’ll give us hope you can believe in.
Look, Lincoln built the continental railroads even in the midst of the Civil War. Ike built the inter-state highway system in the supposedly do-nothing Fifties.
President Obama… Just do it!
John and Adam have been doing a great job of covering on No Agenda one of the latest state-sponsored memes: the notion that the U.S. government should build high speed trains across America. Who’s the latest shill to get on board the program? You guessed it! (or read the title of the post), it’s Chris Matthews:
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And if they put the gasoline tax up to five or six dollars a gallon people might even ride on them.
If you build it they will bomb it. It’s a trap!
When they built the transcontinental railroad they brought in HUGE numbers of foreign labor because it was cheap and locals did not want to do the really hard labor.
I wonder how this would turn out?
In some places it seems to make sense to build high speed rail. A high speed rail from Tampa to Orlando would be great for Tampa. Tourist could stay near the beaches and be minutes away from Disney by train. No navigating the nightmare of I-4.
But it seems like the natives do not want it.
Until the mid-50s, the most used long distance passenger transportation was train service, not airplanes. Use modern technology to build new tracks and modern passenger cars, and trains will again be the long distance transportation of choice.
#3: Train tracks in the 19th Century were built by manual labor because there was no alternative.
Tracks can now be laid by automated systems using computer equipment to set or reset rails to the right gauges, curve the rails, weld, and so forth. The automation works for new track as well.
The 97 mile RailRunner commuter line between Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Belen New Mexico was built with computerized track laying equipment. There are longer term plans in the works for line extension to El Paso TX, and perhaps Denver in the future.
Yea, so OK, “right now” mass transit is problematic in the usa because Rockefeller destroyed it in the early 20th Cent to make room for Standard Oil and pushed the usa into private auto’s.
But where do you think the population is going into the future? What will happen when oil pricing increases by leaps and bounds as it runs out?
Thats right==a turn to mass transit. WHY NOT PLAN FOR IT NOW? Do what makes sense now, plan for what will make sense in the future. Plan for urban densities and a return to the city. EG–as congestion increases between San Diego and LA and SF==should we build more roads, or put in a rail? Or would you at least agree not to build a road where a future rail should go? “P l a n n i n g.” What a concept.
Or just be a dumbass as if tomorrow will never come.
I guess Matthews hasn’t figured out that having someone else (Britain) pay for that late 1930’s and early 1940’s production was the source of capital that ended the depression.
People like the idea of passenger railroads, they just don’t like to actually pay what it costs to ride them.
Amtrak makes money on ONLY ONE LINE, the northeast corridor, every other train is subsidized at the rate of $100/ticket, which is insanity.
America would be better off to invest in improving FREIGHT railroad productivity and get long distance trucks off the roads.
I think it should be Trains Good, Cars Bad. I live in Milwaukee and would love to have light rail to Chicago, Madison, and Mnpls. Driving has become a nightmare, they just built the Marquette interchange and it’s already congested.
It makes sense to build cities and public transportation to encourage people to live closer to where they work. We built the highways and suburbs and that encouraged people to live farther and farther from work. Now the average wage worker spends an hour in a car a day, burning up vital resources.
#10 echeola said “I live in Milwaukee and would love to have light rail to Chicago, Madison, and Mnpls.”
Man that brings back memories of taking the North Shore Line between Chicago and Madison.
BTW this was in 1960.
Where does it say planes are bad in this article…
I don’t know why we can make room for all three forms of transportation. Each has their benefits.
I got no problem with trains. Ride them in third world countries all the time. What an adventure. My problem is paying for the damned things in the US. We are s far in debt we can’t see daylight. Last I heard, we’re approaching 60% GDP in debt!!! When health care kicks in, we’re probably gonna hit 80%. So, where’s the money gonna come from?
Secondly, if my taxes are gonna help pay for the trains, you gotta promise me the TSA will stay away from them. No? I’ll drive, thank you.
Third. Define high speed. Most plans I’ve heard of seem to top out at around 70 mph. And many of the routes seem to be less than express, making lots of local stops. If it takes two days to get somewhere you can fly to in three or four hours, well…
4) I lived in Britain for a few years and used the trains regularly. I’ve also used Amtrak in the northeast on several occasions. Amtrak could learn a lot about cleanliness. And the surly personnel on Amtrak make riding a pleasure. I suppose SOMEbody has to put a thorn in your trip until the TSA get involved.
And last (for now)- if we’re gonna shove this through, then we ought to be building the blasted trains and coaches in our own country. If we’re going to add that much money to the national debt, then it ought to go to buying products produced in the USA.
Whatever gets the old geezers off the road is better in my opinion. Old people will definitely take trains and with all of the baby boomers going into retirement in the coming years it will be in high demand.
I ride the Metra/Amtrak from Chicago to Milwaukee and I even recently took it from Chicago to Vegas (30 hour trip, it sucked). The demand for trains is definitely there because every train I go on is packed and the ticket prices are higher than taking a plane. I don’t know if it’s because you don’t need to go through security checkpoints or because you can walk around freely and go get a snack at the snack bar and drink booze anytime but the trains are always full. I rode the Axela train in D.C. and that is a step above everything else I have been on in the USA. It’s not surprising the politicians get the best trains while everyone else goes on train cars that were built in the seventies.
I think the most important point people are missing is that if we have high speed electric rail in the USA then when (and it is inevitable) the fuel prices start to skyrocket because of dwindling natural resources then people will start taking trains. You don’t think that we will be flying planes forever do you? I don’t see electric powered 747’s coming into production unless someone invents really lightweight batteries. We have to face the fact that in a decade or two we’ll have electric cars for short and medium distance travel, but what about long distance? I think planes will be reserved for oversea travel whereas electric trains will be needed for long distance land travel.
“Chris Matthews Joins the ‘Trains Good, Planes Bad’ Bandwagon”
You say that like it was a bad thing. Everything is of a benefit, if not to excess. And if there is either way too much, or way too little, of something. Then there’s a problem. The problem with air travel is that the US as become way to dependent on it as the main means of travel. And rail travel is practically non-existent, and way too slow. High Speed rail corridors could be established, both east to west, and north to south. Not every rail line has to be high speed. One way lines, protected from intrusions, would have extremely few accidents. And carrier more than one train at a time. But they need to be specially built, and not share rails with cargo carriers, or road beds with automotive traffic. The same way airliners have mostly isolated traffic lanes (from smaller private planes). And newer rail technology needs to be used, beside just steel rails nailed down to wooden ties.
But so far, the lion’s share of technological development, has be mainly devoted to improving air travel. Just so they can keep 35,000 daily flights from crashing into each other. This is what I mean by “too much of something”. What’s wrong with having a viable alternative to flying? It doesn’t have to completely replace it. Or even be on even competitive ground. Apple’s Macs never were, against PC sales. But thank god they were allowed to compete, and grow in use. Or you’d never have those pretty iPhones.
better than what they are spending stimulus money on now. Unemployment is worse than their ‘if we don’t pass the stimulus’ projected unemployment rate.
Airlines get HUGE subsidies. If the trains got those subsidies things would be much different. Airlines usually have tax-exempt filings, the air control is all government controlled and paid for by the government, the airports receive huge subsidies and don’t pay taxes, the companies that build planes get subsidized. In 2002 the U.S.D.O.T. spent $14,000,000,000 on airports… on Amtrak they spent $521,000,000. Also when you fly from small cities, your ticket gets subsidized, that’s how the ticket stays cheaper.
Lets not forget to point out that the American airlines have decided to sign many new billion-dollar contracts with overseas companies such as Airbus that are really hurting the American companies and their workers.
They have trains in Europe and Asia and it works great. The fuel savings of a train over a plane is over 400 percent according to an article I read not long ago.
In Calgary (Alberta, Canada, you Americans) the city’s light rail runs on wind power.
Or we ca keep sponsoring Al Qaeda!
I love the trains too; Japan’s rail system is an absolute joy. High speed is around 150mph and they do run faster in some areas. So yes the trains are great for less than 400-500 miles. But I wouldn’t want to pay Japans high tax rate or suffer the resulting loss of freedom to travel by other means I can afford. High speed rail only makes sense when it connects specific strategic locations. These locations should secure financing necessary for those projects from private lending sources not federally mandated force. Why should a struggling farmer in Iowa pay higher taxes for a rail line in Florida? If the project will make money and be built by reasonable men then financing will be available.That begs the question why do we need the federal government to oversee these things. Why don’t the states or counties take their own responsibility. If the answer is it’s too expensive then IT’S TOO EXPENSIVE.
This is the only way balance will return to the sanity scale. Proof that voters have been had by mad hatters is Nancy Pelosi’s statement that the fastest way to create jobs is to tax the wealth creators and extend more unemployment benefits to those who are currently producing no wealth. The way most of the nation thinks of obtaining a train system is just a symptom of dependency that says I’ll dream along with my representative for the things I want and shakedown the so called “rich” to pay for it. The founding fathers said they didn’t want to live in that depraved world; neither do you my friends.
Combine them both: trains and cars.
It would be really nice to just drive to the train depot, drive the car onto a train, get out and move to a passenger wagon, and then upon arriving at the destination, just drive the car off the train.
High speed, comfort and convenience all tied together. They do it with the Chunnel, why can’t we do it here?
an-ass-sheepdog: Stop dragging your knuckles. The only way to pay for large national projects is to share the costs nationally. You obviously belong to the party of “me! me! me!… how does it benefit me!” Basically acting like a 5 year old, where if it doesn’t benefit you directly, you want nothing to do with it, and if it is good for America, but gives you no direct benefit, then America be damned.
Instead, we should spend our money anyway in highly productive and profitable projects like this one:
$30 Billion more for the war in Afghanistan:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/01/afghanistan-30-billion-war-funding_n_633300.html
Welcome back, John.
SPSFan… the total dollar amount of subsidy divided by the total number of non-northeast corridor tickets = $100/ticket. Insanity.
Simonsez, As for “airline subsidies”.
Airline PASSENGERS pay for airports and air traffic control through specific taxes and fees on tickets. There is currently a surplus of over $10 billion in the airport fund from taxes paid but not spent.
Let’s not forget that most railroads outside the east coast were originally GIVEN the right-of-way and significant land on either side of the tracks. This incredible gift of wealth from the US taxpayers led many railroads to become real estate operations with trains as a hobby in the 20th century.
Just because trains work well in Europe and Japan does not necessarily mean that they will work as well here. Our country is so much bigger than and our population is more spread out. Sure, it is much cheaper and easier to lay track for France and its 550,000 sq km land mass. We have approximately 9,500,000 sq km to cover. They have around 130 people living per sq km and we only have 30 people per sq km. Japan has a land mass of 375,000 sq km and a density of close to 340 people per sq km.
It just seems reasonable to me that what works for them might not work as well for us because of the difference in our sizes and population densities. Now, adding more trains to the north-east where we have higher population densities might make some sense. But I highly doubt we need to be focusing on a national solution to a regional problem.
Stats found at http://www.mongabay.com/igapo/world_statistics_by_area.htm
#4 bac – Currently, the proposed high speed rail terminal will be in northern Downtown Tampa. Tourists to Gulf beaches will still need to navigate Bay area roads, highways and bridges. The terminal area could also have large parking lots, and rental care agency lots (similar to Tampa International Airport about 8 miles away. Why isn’t high speed rail going to TIA – another story.) Ground is supposed to break by Spring 2011. My gut feeling is that Miami-Orlando would have worked out better.
“Stop listening to Europe”. What does Chris Matthews mean? Europe has much better rail now and their austerity measures may actually work for them.
The arrangement of the largest cities in Texas makes high-speed rail connecting the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex to Austin, San Antonio and Houston eminently practical, but every time anyone mentions the idea, huge armies of airline lobbyists leap into action, passing out beaucoup moolah, er, I mean “campaign contributions” and issuing press releases like artillery salvos and squash the project like a bug.
I strongly suspect the same is true for most states and probably the entire nation.