Why Do Conservatives oppose High Speed Rail?

If a major airport hub is down due to weather, entire airline networks come down with it. We see this all the time. Hell, we saw it 3 weeks ago.

Enough with the petty arguments.

Security requirements are not the same on Amtrak as they are on airlines actually. Explanation?

 

Take a look at their history ,and of the history of commercial aviation, which is one uninterrupted chronicle of bankrupcies, mergers, acquistions, stock market swindles, and the like.

A one or two year run of profits doesn't not make a trend in this industry. Anyone who knows that history of the industry knows that.

Of course, as you noted, they are squeezing profits by squeezing their customers. Offering fewer choices at higher prices. Charging what the market will bear.

I realize that you have no sympathy or understanding of the people who use these services regularly. But being raped on price and then treated like garbage by an airline that owns most of the gates in your airport, or the one you want to fly to, or through is not something we look forward to.

 

If you believe that, then you're deluding yourself. Every opponant of high speed rail is either a Republcian or a conservative.

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Wow! Now there's a subtantive, fact based, researched and comprehensive case!!!!!!

 

I notice that a few conservatives like to throw this one in as a gratuitous argument. There is no basis in fact for it at all.

There has been no need to clear security to get on a train since 2001. I wonder why a few right wingers suddenly see the need to add it for high speed rail.

After all, if a terrorist wanted to do real damage to America's infrastucture, they could attack the Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels under the Hudson River, or the main lines of the Ilinois Central, or any of the trunk lines of the BNSF or the CSX.

The argument that the risk changes for a particular train doesn't make sense.

But then, none of the other conservative arguments do either.

The right wing argument seems to be that we can't do it because we haven't done it already. And if it works for the rest of the industrialized world, if we think hard and long enough, we can come up with excuses for why it won't work here, which has been the meat of every right wing response on this tread.

Of course, a lot of these people don't travel, have never travelled on business, and have little understanding or experience with how transportation in the US works in real life.

 

Do post this map again, won't you?

It makes a great case FOR high speed rail.

You imposed a map of Western Europe over the US to show how different the two countries are and how much bigger the US is.

But read your map and see that not only are all the major cities on teh European map served (profitably)) by high speed rail, but the differences and densities invoved are not significantly different than the distances between major cities in the Eastern and Central US and Texas!

Thanks for making our case!

 

California wants $100 billion to run a high speed rail line from Sacramento to LA.

For $100 billion I could electrify every mile of the mainlines of US freight railroads, relieve grade crossing obstructions in Chicago, and build enough nuclear power plants to power all the electrified mainlines and three or four cities.

 

I would have to see some data on that California claim, OK? Our GDP continues to raise, and is higher than Texas or Florida.

GDP by State (California 2,080,600 ~ Texas 1,458,300 ~ Florida 754,000)


California's Job Growth Outpaces Texas's


http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2012-09-06/econ_jobs37__01c__630x420.jpg

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-06/californias-job-growth-outpaces-texass

 

Never said they would 'eclipse'? Said they would be equal to air flight.

Do you know for the past few years, that simply taking a ferry from Marin County to SF to watch a Giant's baseball game, that all bags are searched and many of the same items on the list in airports cannot be with the person...like an open bottle of water...and a Homeland security guard is aboard each boat walking around monitoring everyone...this is Homeland Security at work. Now what do you suppose the security requirements will be for the only high speed train in the USA, with top speeds of 225mph?

 

The article speaks for itself.

I've flown hundreds of times over the years, both in business and pleasure. No one is raped on price? If you can't afford it then take the train or drive.

You're all diatribe here...

 

WHAT? Who on earth told you that?

"Train Railroad Accident & Injuries

There are an estimated 3,000 train accidents each year. Approximately, 1,000 people die as a result of train accidents per year and nearly every 2 weeks a train derailment causes a chemical spill leading up to evacuations of local residents. The occurrence of train accidents has been escalating since 1997. Train accidents happen for many reasons. Railroad crossings may be littered with debris and obstructed, mechanism failure, or simple human error can be at fault when a train derails or slams into a car."
http://www.railroad-accidents.org/

There's an average of just 36 plane accidents a year
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_plane_crashes_occur_each_year?#slide=1

 

Good question being that the TSA is nothing more than a means for ex DHS employees to make money by selling equipment to the TSA via the Chertoff group founded by former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff. You would think they would have expanded to Amtrak and rail in general especially since it could be easy to derail a train and flood a town with toxic chemicals. It happens accidentally all the time. My guess though is that it's more of a hard sell since people don't ride the rails that often and no trains have been used in terrorist attacks. NY isn't messing around; they have storm troopers all over their trains to "prevent attacks" by scaring the population through wearing armor and holding automatic weapons.

 

I think we already have that money,
Now, engineering work has finally begun on the first 30-mile segment of track in Fresno,

 

There are some places where I'm sure high speed rail could help and if those local areas want to raise the funds and build it then I'm all for it. What I'm against is the concept of nation wide high speed rail just to do it which seems to be the plan. As far as I'm concerned if you are linking areas that people don't regularly commute to/from then you are wasting money. It also depends on whether or not people will use the system, much like the lightrail here (which is why I brought it up earlier for comparison). Back when it was new people used it fairly often, however it doesn't see so much use now and has only gotten more dangerous since linking methville (Gresham) to Portland. It also runs to two other cities and is preparing to (or maybe already does) link to another. Either way the only person I knew who used it on any regular basis is my ex girlfriend and that's because she couldn't afford a car. Traffic is still a mess and the lightrail could be replaced by a few bus lines. Honestly it would still take me longer using the lightrail/bus to get to work and the lightrail station is only a few blocks from my house and a bus stop is across the street from work.

Anyway I'm going off on a tanget here but before dismissing it as irrelevant remember that people will need to get from the HSR to their jobs/homes. The point of HSR is to go fast meaning unlike a normal light rail it can't stop every couple of blocks, so either a public transportation system will need to support it or some other option will be necessary. This infrastructure isn't going to come cheap regardless of option.

Again though I'm sure there are some areas where it could make sense; cities that would be linked in 15 minutes or less or that are just regularly commuted to/from, but nation wide would be pointless and it should be at local expense. The current infrastructure has enough issues, I think our money is better spent there at the national level.

 

Hmm, what are they currently for moving nuclear fuel around America? A remote explosive device could be placed anywhere along the way, like a rocket for a jet, or jet load of terrorists to hit a jet load of passengers.

 

Or drop a bomb off an overpass into congested traffic. Blow up a tour bus. Blow up church congregation on Easter Sunday. etc. etc.

 

It is what drives progress and innovation and effort which builds the most wealth for the most people which is then used to grow the economy more.

 

It absolutely does and those gross revenues made pay a hefty price to build and maintain the infrastructure.

Well there are many successes in both and toll roads are well maintained and I can't imagine Obama trying to run an airline.

 

ROFLMAO you mean Texas where the roads are so well built and so well maintained that Interstate speeds are 85 mph, 4 lane 75 and 2 lane 65? Some of the best roads I drive on are in Texas and the most fun due to the higher speeds.

 

What do you think they will do after the first chemical or biological attack on a high speed train?

 

Where on earth did you get the idea that Floraida was barren of economic opportunity, you have no idea the manufacturing that goes on in the state of Florida and other financial opportunity such as the import/export business. Florida has the 4th highest GDP of all the states.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/ranks/rank28.html


People move from California to Texas due to cost of living. Taxes are part of it, but most of California's problem is geographical limitations to real estate, which shoots the costs into the stratosphere. Texas has miles of open land. Buddy, most of our major technological innovations are coming out of California, NOT TEXAS. I know it hurts and you hate it, but California and NY are #1 and #3 in GDP in this country. Texas, is just barely surpassing NY, despite significantly higher population.[/QUOTE]

 

Tell that to Scripps Research Institute. We are growing more bio medical research jobs then CA and NY combined.

Yes, fleeing high tax California for the jobs found in TX

California is a tiny state. Good point.

Silicon valley was founded by Republicans when the state was Republican and they had Republican local government. Same with Hollywood. We are rising, you are going stagnant.

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Was every one of those states in that position or worse when the Democrats stopped running them?

No one will rise them though. Get planes. Freight rail is more useful then passenger rail.

 

When you have far more unemployment, you can outpace us as you catch up. But here, no thought required we have colors:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DnYzFhztA...o/jFNfmUl6E-U/s1600/Migration-AGI-(large).png

Get to work California:

http://www.bls.gov/lau/maps/aacnrt.gif

Or maybe it is just a Democrat thing, you see the worst areas in the above maps, are the blue areas in this one:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Fevwna4wb...z8OY/s1600/2012-Election-County-By-County.png

The theft map kind of matches the election map too:

http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/people/IMAGES/crime_larcenies.gif

As does the murder map:

http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/people/IMAGES/crime_murder.gif

 

He just makes it up as he goes.