High Speed Rail by Niki2

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

High Speed Rail

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Monday, February 15, 2010 08:41
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VIEWED: 595
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Sunday, February 14, 2010 9:52 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Been hearing about this for a while now, and I've heard a lot against it, saying the lines proposed are too short for any true high-speed rail train to be effective:

Quote:
For starters, however, Florida is focusing on an 84-mile connection between Orlando and Tampa. The administration is offering $1.25 billion as the "down payment" on a $2.6 billion project. The goal is to achieve speeds of 168 mph.

But no high-speed train could get up to that speed while making two stops in 20 miles, the plan for the line's most popular stretch — from the Orlando airport to the Orange County Convention Center to Disney World. From there, how useful is a train crossing rural Florida to terminate at a Tampa parking garage, wonders U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park. He ripped the Obama approach, despite its billion-dollar award to Florida.

High-speed rail is a long-range game and the Tampa run is too short, said Rep. Mica, who serves on the House transportation committee. He marveled at the administration's rejection of a request for $30 million to plan a 230-mile Orlando-to-Miami high-speed line. Another problem with the Tampa route, he said, is that Tampa has no commuter rail to distribute passengers once they arrive.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/columnists/high-speed-low-thinkin
g-obama-set-to-waste-211864.html

In the same article, the author suggests that American thinking is not geared toward trains, "they're so 19th century". I disagree with that, and can't help thinking that as auto travel becomes more expensive and difficult (not to mention the day we "run out of gas"), rail is something to look to for transportation, and wonder if getting started now is a way to get ahead of the times.

China is waaaay ahead of us on this, as below; but they have a different mentality to deal with, and longer distances to cover. Whatcha think? (Here come the conspiracy theories, I'm sure)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 10:10 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

It's not enough, but it's a start. Ten years ago, China had no high-speed rail. Now they have almost 6000 miles of it. And they're building 11,000 MORE miles of it in the next couple years. It's tempting to say that they have about 6000 times more high-speed rail than we do, but that would be wrong. We don't have any.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 10:14 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

So, China is using 21st century technology to connect their country in much the same fashion as the US did ... in the 19th century.

Been there, done that.

Director: Bureau of Bigfoot Affairs

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 10:15 AM

KWICKO

And y'know, it seems to me that the best candidates for high-speed rail, at least to start with, would be from, say, a large port where lots of freight is coming in, to a large air hub where lots of stuff is being distributed, OR from a large urban area to a popular tourist destination (such as Los Angeles to Las Vegas, for instance), with very few stops along the way.

Overall, there needs to be a plan for something like the interstate highway system, but starting with just a few east-west and north-south routes, and then branching out.

But I have my doubts that any of it will ever happen, because some politicians will bitch about it as long as it's in anyone else's district, and then they'll bitch about it if it's in THEIR district.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 10:24 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

I like your suggestion, Mike; it's more sensible to me than these short runs, given what I read about the distances necessary to attain the "high" speeds. Unfortunately, you may be right on that last bit, Mike. Getting anything done in this country is like pulling teeth--especially anything FORWARD THINKING!!

Crapper, do you ever post anything that has anything to do with anything? A mind is a terrible thing to waste, but in your case, you'd have to HAVE one in the first place.

If all you can offer is the pathetic crap you're putting up, there's obviously nothing there to waste. If you can actually CONTRIBUTE to any discussion, rather than just bouncing from one to another to put up infantile one-liners, you're just wasting my scrolling finger. I guess you're not capable of an adult discussion...too bad.

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 10:49 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:

Crapper, do you ever post anything that has anything to do with anything? A mind is a terrible thing to waste, but in your case, you'd have to HAVE one in the first place.

You're still in denial, I see.

Quote:

If all you can offer is the pathetic crap you're putting up, there's obviously nothing there to waste. If you can actually CONTRIBUTE to any discussion, rather than just bouncing from one to another to put up infantile one-liners, you're just wasting my scrolling finger. I guess you're not capable of an adult discussion...too bad.

So, you're saying I should be more like you, and in order to "contribute" , I should AGREE with you, and accept what ever you say?

First of all, we're not dating.

Secondly, brevity is the soul of wit.

Director: Bureau of Bigfoot Affairs

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 1:13 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

No no no, I'm not in denial! I don't deny whatsoever that you have no brain! If you had, we'd have seen evidence of it by now.

No soul, no wit, just bullshit.

Obviously I wasn't saying what you deliberately misinterpreted me to have been saying. I was stating what everyone (including those of us who weren't here for your previous incarnation but have seen enough of you this time around) knows; you post taunts, provocations, but never anything of substance, and the only thread you've ever STARTED was to swear at everyone and bitch and moan about how you're treated.

You HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER. You jump into the middle of threads to snark, jack the thread, post something totally irrelevant, and attempt to provoke to get attention. You're transparent and a waste of a good computer, nothing more.

That said, any adults want to carry on the topic?

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 2:26 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
I like your suggestion, Mike; it's more sensible to me than these short runs, given what I read about the distances necessary to attain the "high" speeds. Unfortunately, you may be right on that last bit, Mike. Getting anything done in this country is like pulling teeth--especially anything FORWARD THINKING!!

Niki, I was thinking of the LA-to-Vegas run specifically with an eye towards a few things. Few stops between, so more time at high speed. Bill it as a kind of "Booze Cruise" - you can start partying on the train, and party all the way there and back. Hell, the casinos will even pitch in money and amortize some of the costs, because you're bringing them fresh "fish" every day of every week.

And once people see how cool it is, it WILL spread.

Of course, guys like Ensign will be dead-set against it, because it traffics in "sin". What they don't get, and seemingly never will, is that people are going to Vegas whether he votes for it or not, so you might as well make money off it and bring MORE money into your state in the process.

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 2:34 PM

KWICKO

By the way, take your own advice, Niki; just don't even bother to engage him. Ignore completely. Just a thought.

It's easier said than done, I know. :)

Maybe we should just start a movement: Ignore AuRaptor. Or IgnoRaptor for short. It's concise, it embodies the idea of ignoring him, AND it implies his ignorance, all in one tidy little handle.

'Course, we could all head over to some of his other hangouts and register, I suppose, and just start snarking on every single post he replies to...

Just a few thoughts.

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 2:36 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Would be nice to think it would spread--and in my mind, once single-driver auto becomes unviable, SOMETHING will have to take it's place (hopefully not in my lifetime!).

Ensign? You have to be joking. He's one to talk, in the first place (!), and he doesn't need to be against it for a "reason"; remember, this is the era of the Party of No! As in "No reason needed to be assholes".

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 3:20 PM

FREMDFIRMA

That bein the problem with em, in toto.

They don't wanna discuss, they just wanna lower the signal to noise ratio enough to run everyone ELSE away by effectively ruining the *ability* to discuss anything, kind of the chewbacca defense en-masse.

This ain't the first board that's ever run afoul of that game, but it's one of the few I ever seen actually weather the storm, cause it gets damned frustrating after a while.

You can try ignoring it (and the inevitable escalation in response to that) but I figure once FFNet 2.0 rolls out and they start spamming sock puppets to dodge the ignore-filter and reduce it to a game of whack a mole (I've seen almost a dozen boards destroyed that way), Haken is gonna get annoyed by that and start blocking by IP range, and that'll be the end of em.

Or they could can that crap and actually discuss.
I know where my bet is, on that one.

Anyhows, one thing about high speed rail is that it lends itself very naturally to the idea of alternative power sourcing since there's buttloads of ways to produce electricity, not the least of which is going hybrid and installing solar elements on top of the cars.

Nows the time to do it too, cause the TSA shakedown has annoyed folk so much with air travel that outside of dire necessity, and even sometimes then, most folk would rather not fly.

Of course, adding that shakedown to the rail system would kill it dead, dead, dead, before it even gets off the ground - folks are tired of that shit, yanno ?

-F

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 3:32 PM

KIRKULES

Americans love their cars, so they are very resistant to the inconvenience of rail. In areas were rail has been tried like Seattle, the trains run virtually empty. Not only that, they took money from other public transportation like busses to pay for it. They would have been much better off spending a fraction of the money and upgraded their bus fleet. There probably are areas were rail makes sense, but with the government handing out most of the money for rail, it will end up being built based on political considerations instead of practical ones.

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 3:39 PM

FREMDFIRMA

That one I'll give ya, Kirk - Baltimores "loot rail" aka "light rail" was nothing more than an endless string of political handouts that went tremendously over budget for a rail system that added very little to an already badly broken public transportation system.

Didn't help matters that in conjunction with the damn stadium and sports team, they robbed the education and library budget for it on the promise that some part of the proceeds would be funneled back - a promise that was, of course, never kept.

I think a private investment would be the way to go with perhaps a temporary tax abatement scaled to offset initial costs, like 90% first year, 75% the second, 50% the third, etc etc.

That way we're not actually putting Government money into it, and still managing to encourage development - advertisers would also likely be interested as well as businesses at either end, and the first company I would approach would be Virgin, cause they could roll it out initially as a premium service with in-car entertainment patterned off their airline, so on, so forth.

It's an idea with a lot of potential, but allowing the politicians to get their fingers (claws rather) any depth into it is suicidally stupid, sure.

-F

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Sunday, February 14, 2010 7:36 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:

That said, any adults want to carry on the topic?

Been there, done that.

Director: Bureau of Bigfoot Affairs

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Monday, February 15, 2010 8:41 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Frem,

Quote:
Anyhows, one thing about high speed rail is that it lends itself very naturally to the idea of alternative power sourcing since there's buttloads of ways to produce electricity, not the least of which is going hybrid and installing solar elements on top of the cars.

YES!

As to America's love affair with cars, I believe that's gotta change eventually, no matter what. California will be tough, as we have so little mass transportation in our infrastructure, but I have hope.

Our ferries ran at an incredible loss, but are slowly gaining ridership and may be viable in the end. Certainly, given that Marin rejected mass transit (thinking back then it would open us up to more "undesirables"...idjits), we need something. There are plans underway for proposed mass transit out this way, but right now BART only goes East-West and South. We need tons more.

At least when it comes to hauling freight, truckers are having an increasingly tough time, so maybe rail will get a start there, I dunno. I just wish it would be begun in a sensible manner and have a chance to catch on. The trains in Europe are FANTASTIC, we fell in love with them and traveled all through exclusively by rail.

I'd love to see it happen; whether it does, or does in my lifetime, I doubt, unfortunately.

As to Crappy's "been there done that",

(damn, he's making me need to look for more "laugh hysterically" emoticons, I'm being forced to use each more than once...). Answer: not as far as I've seen since you "returned", not even once; I dare you to point to just once! No, wait, don't bother; it would just encourage you to post more...not that responding to you doesn't do that anyway. Damn, will I ever learn??

IgnoRaptor, IgnoRaptor, IgnoRaptor...new mantra.

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