Bullet trains to nowhere. Unless your destination is, say, staggering waste and then, ultimately, bankruptcy.
In which case, all aboard! Nick Gillespie, Reason:
Three years ago, voters were sold a project that was gonna cost $43 billion, which now costs $66 billion in 2010 dollars, but the actual cost is gonna be $98.5 billion, if everything goes faster than Carl Douglas doing some kung-fu fighting and the whole system is up and running by 2033? Not to worry, though, because the very best people in the California government and heavily subsidized business community and at the Obama White House are all over it.
Where’s the line in the “business plan” that says all numbers are placeholders until a new form of scientific measurement is developed to calculate the amount of bullshit included in these estimates?
It’s a statist thing, Nick. You wouldn’t understand.
I’m looking forward to the bullet train. Especially after someone decides to ride the train from LA to SF then turns around and drives back to LA, discovering in the process that driving a car or taking the train makes no difference in the amount of travel time.
you have to remember LA spent billions building a subway that couldn’t go to the airport cause of the union whore taxi bitches whined and whined
I didn’t know the LA train didn’t go to the airport. That’s some world-class stupidity. At least the dumb train in Minneapolis goes to the airport.
I guess I shouldn’t call it dumb. I’m pretty close to a station, and I use it all the time. However, the new line they’re building that will connect downtown Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul? Dumb.
I use the subway when I can but that’s not very often… I got to use it the other day to meet friends in Hollywood for dinner … a lot of the places it goes have no night life and you have to be careful cause last train is like at 11 – midnight
but California is very familiar with rail scandals – Government Motors ass-fucked the California rail system many many moons ago
Hey, what about all those thousands and thousands of Californians who desperately need to get from Bakersfield to Barstow on a damn big hurry, huh?
Quoth Jonah:
Utah’s train system is pretty good, but that’s mostly because the geography (mountains on the east, lake on the west) constrains the cityscapes to a long, narrow corridor. The commuter trains come in from the north and south and land downtown (where it’s a hassle to drive), plus one goes to the U of U, and they’re building some short spurs to the airport and a couple to the west.
Trains are lovely if you’ve got the population density to support them; otherwise, they’re just a proggy pipe dream.
Here’s how the AP helpfully summarizes this story:
Profitable? And no public subsidies needed to operate? I think that will make it the first passenger rail line in like, forever, to do either. Or they’re using some imaginary math in their calculations.
A couple of amusing comments from the link:
Here, the train is being built because progressives like trains. There is already a bus line that will take you where you want to go, and it’s far cheaper to run. And, since the train is basically going to run down the middle of the street that connects the two cities, traffic will be much worse than it already is. Progress!
he system would be profitable even at the lowest ridership estimates and would not require public subsidies to operate.
$700 ticket per person, per stop.
Dave: Burlington-Northern – the only profitable railroad in n. america
Don’t get me started, cranky. I currently live three blocks from a bus line that takes me straight downtown. Once the toy train is up and running, Metro Transit will remove all the east-west routes, and replace them with “improved” north-south routes that will take one to a train station. This means that I’ll have the privilege of walking farther to catch a southbound bus, so that I can stand around in an open-air
drug marketplatform ’til the next train comes by. I’m guessing my commute time will go from 20 minutes to at least 30 minutes. Most of the extra time will be standing-around-and-waiting time, which, when added to my longer walking distance, will make those thirty-below-zero days extra-extra special.And if I decide to drive in my car, I’m still screwed. I live north of University Ave, which means that for years to come, I’ll have the privilege of sitting at the stoplight, waiting for the damn trains to clear the intersection so that I can get to Cub or Target or I-94. Not that I’d ever need to get to such places. On the bright side, I won’t need to head to University to visit any of my local watering holes or mom-and-pop storefronts, because they’re all going out of business while the street is impassible.
And to think, all this joy and rapture is only costing me a billion dollars!
I live near Hiawatha. Crossing Hiawatha is exciting because you never know when a train will hold up traffic. Crossing University will be even more exciting.
I use the train all the time, but I would have used the bus in its place, and that billion dollars wouldn’t have been spent.
My best friend lives on 38th Street a bit east of the line. Any time I head out to pick up some dinner at Ted Cook’s, my parting words to the gang are, “I’ll be back in five to forty minutes!”
I just watched a video on the project because I was wondering how they are going to handle traffic on Washington on the East Bank. As it turns out, their solution is to only allow buses and bicycles. A nice Utopian mall, none of those nasty private vehicles. Progress!
I was in Minneapolis a few years ago for a business trip. I couldn’t believe how much the trains had screwed up a downtown that used to be pretty easy to get around in.
How is ridership on the light rail? Used pretty heavily?
I ask, because even when I lived in Minneapolis proper (Linden Hills to be exact) I worked in the suburbs. The only reason I went downtown was to drink. Which I managed to do on a frequent basis. My point being that light rail, for me, would have been about as useful as socks on a rooster.
I thought Nicollet Mall was kind of cool when I lived there. Probably because it was on the way to my favorite drinking establishments But Washington Ave.? Are they nuts?
in other minneapolis news
The Tenth Commandment billboard
Burlington Northern
Now part of Burlington Northern Santa Fe.
Norfolk Southern, among others.
My great-grandfather (I think) worked on one of the railroads that’s become part of BNSF, and my wife’s great-grandfather was killed in a train accident while working for the Norfolk & Western which is now part of Norfolk Southern.
Contrast that with Rick Perry in Iowa:
Shouldn’t they rename the bullet train the wizard train out of respect for cultural sensitivities? You know, like the Baltimore NBA franchise.
Commuter trains, wizard trains, etc., are just another manifestation of wanting the US to be more like Europe, distances, standard of living, and population density notwithstanding.