[rengerts]

Choo Choo!!!

I think the reason Liberals love high-speed trains so much is because Europe has them and everything Europe does is oh soooooo cool and ultra-sophisticated and modern and great and just plain awesome. America is backward and awful and unsophisticated, especially the gun-lovers and bible-thumpers in Flyover Country. Nevermind that most Americans don't want high-speed rail and would never ride it. Americans love their cars...Europeans don't. It's just that to have it would make America just as cool as Europe and that would be great, no matter how much it costs.

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/h...nsolvency.html

High Speed to Insolvency

Why liberals love trains.

by George F. Will

February 27, 2011

Generations hence, when the river of time has worn this presidency’s importance to a small, smooth pebble in the stream of history, people will still marvel that its defining trait was a mania for high-speed rail projects. This disorder illuminates the progressive mind.

Remarkably widespread derision has greeted the Obama administration’s damn-the-arithmetic-full-speed-ahead proposal to spend $53 billion more (after the $8 billion in stimulus money and $2.4 billion in enticements to 23 states) in the next six years pursuant to the president’s loopy goal of giving “80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail.” “Access” and “high-speed” to be defined later.

Criticism of this optional and irrational spending—meaning: borrowing —during a deficit crisis has been withering. Only an administration blinkered by ideology would persist.

Florida’s new Republican governor, Rick Scott, has joined Ohio’s (John Kasich) and Wisconsin’s (Scott Walker) in rejecting federal incentives—more than $2 billion in Florida’s case—to begin a high-speed rail project. Florida’s 84-mile line, which would have run parallel to Interstate 4, would have connected Tampa and Orlando. One preposterous projection was that it would attract 3 million passengers a year—almost as many as ride Amtrak’s Acela in the densely populated Boston–New York–Washington corridor.

The three governors want to spare their states from paying the much larger sums likely to be required for construction-cost overruns and operating subsidies when ridership projections prove to be delusional. Kasich and Walker, who were elected promising to stop the nonsense, asked Washington for permission to use the high-speed-rail money for more pressing transportation needs than a train running along Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Cincinnati, or a train parallel to Interstate 94 between Milwaukee and Madison. Washington, disdaining the decisions of Ohio and Wisconsin voters, replied that it will find states that will waste the money.

California will. Although prostrate from its own profligacy, it will sink tens of billions of its own taxpayers’ money in the 616-mile San Francisco–to–San Diego line. Supposedly 39 million people will eagerly pay much more than an airfare in order to travel slower. Between 2008 and 2009, the projected cost increased from $33 billion to $42.6 billion.

[PaulCameron]

Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...44483820110311

Worldwide, nations not normally associated with the bullet train revolution - India, Brazil, Argentina, and Morocco, among others - are making plans to build high-speed rail networks. They understand that rapid, inter-city rail systems will be essential to developing competitive 21st-century economies as oil supplies dwindle, highways and airports face increasing congestion, and pressure to reduce carbon emissions rises.

And the United States? For the past several months the news on the high-speed rail front has been dominated by several governors, swept into power by the Tea Party movement, proudly proclaiming that they will have nothing to do with high-speed rail projects, which they contend are boondoggles. Indeed, the governors of Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio have collectively rejected $3.6 billion in federal funds that would have covered nearly all of the cost of building rail lines on such routes as Orlando to Tampa, Milwaukee to Madison, and Cleveland to Columbus.

Fortunately, the foresight of the Obama administration and various states will ensure that the foundation of a national high-speed rail network will be laid in the coming years, with $8 billion in federal stimulus funds going to construct the first links in a high-speed rail network that is envisioned to stretch 17,000 miles by 2030. Bullet trains would eventually whisk people between all major U.S. cities - Los Angeles to Seattle, Dallas to Albuquerque, and Boston to Washington, at 220 miles per hour. The cost of such a network would be significant - $600 billion - but a combination of public and private funds would build the system, which would eventually yield benefits that far exceed the original investment.

...

Enhancing U.S. energy security is just one reason the country needs a state-of-the-art high-speed rail system, which by 2030 could transport millions of people each day between America's cities. A national high-speed rail system would generate millions of jobs; help revive the country's manufacturing sector by creating a new industry producing the trains, steel, and related components; alleviate pressure on a crumbling transportation infrastructure; and lessen the ever-worsening congestion on America's highways and at its airports, where delays cause an estimated $156 billion in losses to the U.S. economy annually. And then there is climate change and the large-scale reduction of CO2 emissions that would result from the creation of an interstate high-speed rail system and the expansion of regional commuter rail systems.

As a high-speed rail network spreads across the U.S. in the coming decades, the costs of operating the national transportation system will decline each year to the point where the savings will eventually exceed the estimated $600 billion cost of building the rail system. Although public funds will be used to cover much of the construction costs, the network will perform best if operated by private companies.

The U.S. must build a national high-speed rail network if it hopes to maintain its competitiveness in the world economy. China and Europe are now moving ahead with their high-speed rail networks at breakneck speed, which means that in a decade or two they will have significantly reduced their dependence on imported oil, created tens of millions of new jobs, and saved their countries trillions of dollars by vastly improving the productivity of their economies thanks to a low-carbon transportation sector that moves people and goods at speeds that could one day hit 300 miles per hour, or more.

[PickEmUp]

A recent Harris Poll shows that an overwhelming number of Americans -- 64% -- support federal funding for high speed rail projects. 62% say they also support state funding. 66% say they would use rail for leisure travel. 33% say they would use it for daily work commutes.

A majority of Republicans, 52%, also support state funding for high speed rail, compared to only 35% who oppose. 50% of Republicans polled also support federal funding and 38% oppose.

Among Independents, 66% support state funding and 63% support federal funding.

Among Democrats, 74% support state funding and 75% support federal funding.

Harris: http://www.harrisinteractive.com/New...t/Default.aspx

I'm guessing Rasmussen has come up with some polling showing the opposite. It wouldn't be the first time they came up with the complete opposite of respected polling firms. It's like they decide on the answers that fit a Fox News talking point and then do some robo-calling to find a few right-wing households to generate the desired result.

[TaxSheemaSter]

Well, at least Brad is now quoting a Republican mainstay that I actually have some respect for.

As for the ultra cool European trains, yes, the ICE, Thalyis and TGV are totally awesome! Acela isn't so bad in the Northeast, and it still seems pretty popular.