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Workers in many states thank FL Gov for their new jobs

I live in one of the 15 states that's getting this money. We are thrilled- people working and really easy new way to get from the coast to Boston.
 
what is the kickback % for the mob up there?
 
RaleighDevil said:
How about the people in Washington letting that money stay in Florida instead of taking it and then making Floridians beg to get it back?
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Better yet, how about the people in Washington just keeping that money and not spending it?
 
RJKarl said:
A short video of China's latest highspeed rail technology. China will have the longest HSR network in the world by 2012 and will be larger ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNe0f3kI2l0

OOPS....
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Because China is a poor and rural country and needs such things for its people to get around. Everybody in the US drives or flies. It is engrained in our culture, much as rail travel is engrained in Chinese, Soviet, and some European culture.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
Because China is a poor and rural country and needs such things for its people to get around. Everybody in the US drives or flies. It is engrained in our culture, much as rail travel is engrained in Chinese, Soviet, and some European culture.
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Everyone in the US doesn't drive. Actually I know around me rail traffic is way up within gas prices being what the are. The commuter rail from prov to Boston was up like 43 percent the past two months.
 
ELC, a lot of the US is poor and rural and nowhere near a major airport.
 
awakegirl said:
Everyone in the US doesn't drive. Actually I know around me rail traffic is way up within gas prices being what the are. The commuter rail from prov to Boston was up like 43 percent the past two months.
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Just like Obama wanted.

I don't know why everyone's so surprised. I'm annoyed that I didn't put myself in a position to profit from it.
 
Liquid Karma said:
Uh, no.

The reason we lag behind places like France, Great Britain and Japan when it comes to rail transportation is a fairly obvious geographical issue.
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Not necessarily. Yes, it doesn't make sense to have a high speed rail system from New York to San Francisco, but that doesn't mean we should scrap high speed rail as a whole. There are plenty of corridors where high speed rail could make sense if it was fast, reliable, frequent, and cost effective. It is much easier to jump on a train and go from downtown to downtown than to head to the airport (often on the outskirts of a city), go through security, fly, and then head back into your destination city. There is no excuse for the lack of infrastructure, speed, and delays that exist in the Northeast Corridor right now. Rail in the United States has been horribly mismanaged. A group of Penn students came up with a great proposal that would signifigantly impact rail travel in the northeast: http://articles.philly.com/2010-08-11/news/24973359_1_high-speed-rail-high-speed-corridors-northeast-corridor

Meanwhile, Amtrak and our politicians can't get their heads out of their asses.

I think most of the corridors on this map make sense if the stipulations listed above are met.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:High_Speed_Rail_07-09-2009.JPG
 
TRains through the rural areas are secondary to building them in metropolitan areas.

between effective and reasonably priced trains and expanding fuel efficientcy, we drop oil prices.

In the 70s, there was a hue and cry about how expensive and awful it was to make all cars have catalytic converters. There's no reason to do the same type of madate and make all new cars sold in Ameirca by 2025 hybrids or alternate fuel (with a significant mileage requirement).

We can do this. It's just the oil companies own Congress.
 
awakegirl said:
Everyone in the US doesn't drive. Actually I know around me rail traffic is way up within gas prices being what the are. The commuter rail from prov to Boston was up like 43 percent the past two months.
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Commuter rail from Providence to Boston is another matter entirely from an expensive high speed rail system that simply is not needed in most places. The high speed rail stuff has been debated for ages on these boards. In some places, it makes good sense to have one. In most places, it does not.

Culturally, China is worlds apart from the US in its attitude toward rail. The US largely abandoned the railroads with the automobile and especially with suburban sprawl in the 1950s. China never did that, nor did the Soviets. They were too impoverished then and even now to abandon their most effective way of transit over long distances.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
Commuter rail from Providence to Boston is another matter entirely from an expensive high speed rail system that simply is not needed in most places. The high speed rail stuff has been debated for ages on these boards. In some places, it makes good sense to have one. In most places, it does not.

Culturally, China is worlds apart from the US in its attitude toward rail. The US largely abandoned the railroads with the automobile and especially with suburban sprawl in the 1950s. China never did that, nor did the Soviets. They were too impoverished then and even now to abandon their most effective way of transit over long distances.
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From the link above, which high speed rail corridors don't make sense? Just because we abandoned rail development for highway infrastructure development doesn't mean we are incapable of returning to more responsible development of our rail infrastructure. In addition, investment in railroad infrastructure will greatly benefit the rail freight business which is starting to thrive as it is both more environmentally responsible and fiscally beneficial to ship goods across country on rail rather than trucks.
 
GreenDeac said:
Not necessarily. Yes, it doesn't make sense to have a high speed rail system from New York to San Francisco, but that doesn't mean we should scrap high speed rail as a whole. There are plenty of corridors where high speed rail could make sense if it was fast, reliable, frequent, and cost effective. It is much easier to jump on a train and go from downtown to downtown than to head to the airport (often on the outskirts of a city), go through security, fly, and then head back into your destination city. There is no excuse for the lack of infrastructure, speed, and delays that exist in the Northeast Corridor right now. Rail in the United States has been horribly mismanaged. A group of Penn students came up with a great proposal that would signifigantly impact rail travel in the northeast: http://articles.philly.com/2010-08-11/news/24973359_1_high-speed-rail-high-speed-corridors-northeast-corridor

Meanwhile, Amtrak and our politicians can't get their heads out of their asses.

I think most of the corridors on this map make sense if the stipulations listed above are met.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:High_Speed_Rail_07-09-2009.JPG
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There are plenty of excuses. Their names are Tony, Vinnie, Vito, and Sal.
 
Your world view is truly amazing, sad and frightening.

The reaso nwe don't have high speed rail has names like EXXON/Mobil, Inhofe, Boehner and Koch.
 
GreenDeac said:
From the link above, which high speed rail corridors don't make sense? Just because we abandoned rail development for highway infrastructure development doesn't mean we are incapable of returning to more responsible development of our rail infrastructure. In addition, investment in railroad infrastructure will greatly benefit the rail freight business which is starting to thrive as it is both more environmentally responsible and fiscally beneficial to ship goods across country on rail rather than trucks.
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Well I can't really say which ones do and don't make sense just from looking at that. For example, it doesn't make sense to have a connection from Austin to San Antonio because it makes more sense to just drive in your car from that route. But if you're going to make one that goes from Dallas to San Antonio, which might make sense, why not throw one in Austin since it's on the way?

All this is very relevant to the cost issues you brought up. Something may make sense, but the cost might not make sense because the short and long term demand won't be there, which is one reason why Amtrak bleeds money. It is reasonable to assume an increased demand due to faster travel times, but what will the cost be of these travel times? If I can hop on a plane for $100 more and get there an hour and a half faster, it might not be worth it to the business community (which is who much of this HSR proposal is set to benefit, theoretically) to waste that time on a train. Also, what will the cost of security be for these lines, which are bound to be a huge target for terrorists? These are miles and miles or proposed rail lines. It's easier to do security for airlines because we only have to do it at the airports. For this, you'd have to do it at the rail hubs and along the routes. If we don't have the manpower to secure our borders, how will we secure what is going to be more miles of rail lines than what exist at our (southern, at least) border?
 
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