Why Do Conservatives oppose High Speed Rail?

Again, what is your rebuttal to our public highway system or public roads you use every day?

 

If that were the case, the would never have been railroads, airlines or interstate highways.

Virtually every railroad in America benefitted from substantial government assistance in the form of land and right-of-way acquisition, which is always the most expensive and time consuming part of building a road or a railroad.

Every one of those technologies relied on very generous government support during their formative years.

I am always amazed at the way extremist libertarians cling to the knee jerk notion that nothing is worth doing unless it makes some businessman a profit

Of course, the people who finance liberatarian institutions like the CATO institute come largely from inherited money and are ususally all for any government action that gives them a competative advantage that they didnt' have to earn by making, better, cheaper products or services.

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This is why our infrastructure is crumbling. Conservative oppose investment.

 

Im more than happy to pay as i use them. If its of no value ill order online, take rail or work closer to home.

Why must you take other peoples money so the state can play Santa for you? Are you not a grown man/ women, why do you insist on sponging off others, its pathetic.

 

You can't take rail either, that is publicly subsidized by YOUR gas tax!

Your argument is silly. You can't go anywhere. 99% infrastructure in this country is receiving some sort of public subsidy or has been bailed out. Sir, you can't travel without it. Stay home and don't leave.

 

Why do you "take other people's money" to drive on that road you use?

 

lol, so we take your money spend it on goodies we want and if i happen to use it (even though i pay more than the average person) that some how makes me in agreement with your socialist property theft? No sorry it doesnt. Id much rather user pays, but im guessing the parasites of society would stave to death without their once of other peoples blood.

 

You're dealing with people grasping at straws now. Their arguments get progressivly more and more absurd.

This is the viewpoint of someone who knows nothing about the world beyond their immediate surroundings. They don't travel. They've never been more than 100 miles from home except to go to Vega, Orlando, Branson, Mo or Dollywood ever. I suspect a lot of them have never been on an airplane, much less a train

To them, high speed rail is a picture in a magazine, and they think it's science fiction, even though reliable profitable systems have been in operation for thirty years in Europe and longer than that in Japan. Russia, China, South Korea, Tiawan all have them. Russia is even contemplating a high speed train for the Trans Siberian Railroad which would carry both freight and and passengers, and reduce the Moscow to Tokyo travel time to three days.

 

He seems to have missed high speed rail as well!! lol

 

You must live on the wrong planet, because life doesn't work that way in America. Are you American? Are you socialist?

 

Conservatives never think anything through to a conclusion.

 

Everyone uses public infrastructure, sir. We wouldn't have society functioning well if there was a toll booth at the end of everyone's driveway.

 

First I've lived and studied in Europe Germany specifically. Unless you are taking a train trip across Europe most people fly the longer routes even in Germany its more common to fly from Hamburg to Munich than it is to take the train.

Second

 

That is not true. Considerable more people take the train from hamburg to munich than airplane. It is simply more comfortable.

I still don´t get what you try to tell me. Are you telling me you don´t have the technology to build a functional highspeed net?

 

For comparison and contrast, Hoover Dam also cost a lot and has repaid much the costs associated with it and we have that infrastructure available now.

 

Our infrastructure is crumbling because tax money gets earmarked by liberals to liberal pet projects.

 

I guess it really depends...It takes 6 hours on train and 90 minutes via flight. It cost more on train as well.

 

You have to go to the airport, you have security checks, delays...In the end it is a zero sum game. I also consider it to be criminal to waste rescources for a flight while traveling inland. But thats my personal opinion.

 

Why not ditch the drug war and invest it in high speed rail?

 

His point is further contradicted by the fact that the Northeast Regional carries the same number of passengers between Washington and New York dispite the fact that it isn't high speed at all. Add in the Accela service, and rail traffic exceeds air traffic.

 

Like I said it really depends on what that person wishes to do. If he wants to save money and get there quicker his or her choice. BTW you have to go to the train station, and could have delays there as well. I used to use the Trains in Munich to go to Ansbach for a few years. That made more sense.

You have to realize Germany is a small country. I live in colorado and can drive 6.5 hours and still be in my state. High Speed rail is old tech, we need to go with the new tech.
http://www.the-american-interest.co...ias-high-speed-rail-be-obsolete-from-day-one/

 

Maybe people you know. But the numbers are pretty damn simple. There are 2 direct ICE leaving Hamburg for Munich every day. There are dozens of direct flights leaving Hamburg for Munich everyday.

Who said we didn't. Its a question of practicality, as well as who pays for it and who gets to use it. One nice thing about Germany being so small is that even your small states get to enjoy and use the rail. What liberal (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)bags here are arguing for is that the West coast and North East gets the rail and the rest of the county pays for it but gets squat.

 

Why not put it in something else that we all can use instead of high speed rail for the liberal states while everyone else gets squat.

 

This is the kind of intentionally misleading assertions that opponants of high speed rail routinely make.

It's also the sort of obsevative that people who don't travel make. If you travel on business, and have appointments, and deadlines to meet, and work to get done, this sort of breezy misleading dismissal is meaningless.

The real world is very different.

Just for the sake of argument, I did a direct comparison of air travel to travel on the Northeast Regional.

The travel time by train from Center City Philadelphia to Back Bay in Boston is 6 hours on the slow train, and 5 on the Accella. I will need about an hour to get to Philadephia and park my care, so let's be conservative and say seven hours. (or I could pick up the train four miles from my house, which would eliminate the cost of paying to park)

By contrast, I can drive to BWI (1 1/2 hours), spend an hour getting from the parking lot to my seat on the plane (the airline actually recommends arriving 2 hours in advance). Then there's a flight of 1 hour 20 minutes. In this scenario, my destination is Manchester, N.H. because it is not plagued with the delays, overcrowding and inconvenience of Logan. It's a trip I've taken many times.

Then I have to rent a car on the other end (30 minutes), and the drive to Boston (1 hour assuming light traffic).

So, lets add that up.

7 hours by train. During which I will have a comfortable seat, and even the opportunity to eat lunch in a dining car, and I can work the entire time because i have phone service and wifi.

OR

5 1/2 to 7 hours aggregate by air, nearly all of which will be dead time, as I can't work on the plane or behind the wheel of a car. And dining? Peanuts and diet coke, unless I stop on the road.

Oh, and the fares are almost exactly the same (comparing Southwest Business class) to the comparable in comfort coach seat on the train.

If I wanted to leave the night before, I could book a compartment on the train, have dinner, do some work sleep and arrive in Boston the next morning, and my hotel room would be covered.

You travelled as a student, which meant you discounted all the inconviences associated with travel because you had few if any deadlines to meet. That's not a real world comparison.

 

Like I said it really depends. The west is much different than the east coast. And as I stated high speed rail is old tech....

 

This statement is completely false. It's not hard to document what a lie it is either.

The federal gas tax has not increased since 1993, and only then as the last part of a three stage increase backed by the Reagan Adminstration to put the transportation trust fund on a sound basis.

In the same interval, the cost of resurfacing a mile of highway has roughly tripled.

Of course, the GOP today is not intrested in putting anything on a sound basis. They've played games with economic blackmail and strenuously opposed any investments in infrastructure for a long time/

Twice during the 2000's the GOP proposed cutting gas taxes.

And, in 2007, the Bush adminstration saw the transportation trust fund sink into deficit for the first time in its 85 year history.