$53 Billion for High Speed Rail?

[merrylander]

Hammacher Shlemmer will sell you a flying car for a mere $300,000 (why they send me their catalogs I really don't know).

Bit more than that but then we go first class.

Putting corn likker in gasoline is the dumbest effing move I have ever seen. Of course Archer Daniel Midlands thinks it's great and they own Grassley. My Ford Probe with a 2.2 litre four used to give good gas mileage until the screwed about mixing ethanol and gasoline. When I bought the Impala LS with a 3.8 litre V6 it gave me the same gas mileage as the Ford was doing. Once they programmed and designed to engines to be able to burn that shit it was one thing. But cars designed and built before E85 watched their gas mileage go into the toilet. And yes it is hell on plastic, my Ariens tractor has a plastic tube inside the gas tank. When the engine stopped running I pulled it out and it was full of holes.

[d-ray657]

I wonder how the cost compares between building a mile of super-highway and a mile of high speed rail track?

Regards,

D-Ray

[doucanoe]

Originally Posted by d-ray657

I wonder how the cost compares between building a mile of super-highway and a mile of high speed rail track?

Regards,

D-Ray

Around 1.5 - 2 million /mile for heavy traffic rail. That doesn't include elevated rail or similar situations.

I have no idea for highway.

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

Blue, they're figuring it out. The big problem last I heard was new blacktop with no lines in rain.

Have any of you guys ever HAD to take the bus??

Pete

In July of 1982 the Navy made me take a bus from Warren to Cleveland for in-processing at the Federal Building. Greyhound. It took three and a half hours and the obese guy sitting next to me slept the whole way and smelled like rotten cabbage. For a while there I wondered if he was dead. But, I'll be damned if he didn't wake up just as we arrived in Cleveland.

Once in San Diego, I got wasted drunk and somehow ended up on the city transit bus riding around all night with the homeless people. (It was raining.)
Actually, it was a lot of fun. The homeless can be a blast when your good and tore up.

Dave

[Combwork]

Originally Posted by d-ray657

I wonder how the cost compares between building a mile of super-highway and a mile of high speed rail track?

Regards,

D-Ray

It's not just building cost, it's running cost. Once built, assuming both are well maintained I would guess the overall cost for new rail would be lower than new road.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by Combwork

It's not just building cost, it's running cost. Once built, assuming both are well maintained I would guess the overall cost for new rail would be lower than new road.

To whom? Roads are already paid for by excise taxes on motor fuels. Trains, OTOH, are just a money pit for public subsidies.

One of the big problems with passenger rail in the US is the sprawling nature of our cities. If you live in a typical suburb of a big American city, you may well be an hour or more from the rail station and the rail station where you're headed may be an hour from your ultimate destination - and there may not be good public transport connecting the rail stations to anything else.

High speed rail in the US is a big, costly solution looking for a problem. If we want to spend money on rail, why not build world-class light rail/subways in our major cities? There are only a handful of big cities in this country that have light rail/subways that compete in terms of quality and coverage with major cities in other parts of the industrialized world. Even DC, with its Metro, doesn't yet have train service to its major gateway airport (Dulles). This is true of most major airports in the country.

We need to learn to walk before we run.

[CarlV]

We have a little of it going on out here. A couple blocks from it is not the greatest as it is the old town. The light rail intersects Amtrack here and does go to the SF airport and there is not much need for a car there as most everything one needs to live is within a block or two of the housing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Transit_Village
The Chinese were talking to Arnold here in Ca. interested in setting up high speed so there must be a profit to be made, now the Germans have bought majority of the NYSE. Too bad we are starting to sound so third world.


Carl

[piece-itpete]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

In July of 1982 the Navy made me take a bus from Warren to Cleveland for in-processing at the Federal Building. Greyhound. It took three and a half hours and the obese guy sitting next to me slept the whole way and smelled like rotten cabbage. For a while there I wondered if he was dead. But, I'll be damned if he didn't wake up just as we arrived in Cleveland.

Once in San Diego, I got wasted drunk and somehow ended up on the city transit bus riding around all night with the homeless people. (It was raining.)
Actually, it was a lot of fun. The homeless can be a blast when your good and tore up.

Dave

rotten cabbage LMAO!! And on your advice, I'm hanging out with homeless people Friday night

Finn, Cleveland must be ahead of the curve on something, our light rail goes to the airport. So you can get off the plane and easily go right your choice of fabulous destinations: the beatup dead downtown, or to the hood.



Pete

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

rotten cabbage LMAO!! And on your advice, I'm hanging out with homeless people Friday night

Finn, Cleveland must be ahead of the curve on something, our light rail goes to the airport. So you can get off the plane and easily go right your choice of fabulous destinations: the beatup dead downtown, or to the hood.



Pete

Downtown was fabulous and the 'hood wasn't the 'hood when Clevelands light rail was built. Outsourcing and the failure to move to new and better things in it's wake created the mess you have now.

Dave

[piece-itpete]

Agreed. I remember going downtown at Christmas, to see Mr Jingaling, window displays, and slide the slide on 'The Christmas Story'. Seems like a different planet now.

Of course, there were already many very bad neighborhoods in those days too.

Busing killed what was left of the good neighborhoods. Anyone who can gets out of there for their kids sake.

A few weeks ago the Plain Dealer ran a story - 'what if Pittsburgh and Cleveland joined into a single municipality?' I thought, yeah, right lol.

Pete