Just a few thoughts on the “let’s build railroads for the WIN!” idiocy emanating from King Ogabe’s Idiocratic Misadministration these days since nobody else seems to be posting worth a damn in spite of the generous salary and benefit plan offered to our Imperial Staff.
Take it from somebody who grew up in a country ideally designed for public mass transit, both culturally and demographically, the latter part being particularly important since, for that sort of thing to be profitable, you have to have a LOT of people crammed together in relatively small areas with an acute and frequent need to transport themselves at the same time as them being able to exist without private transportation.
After all, if you need private transportation anyway in order to accommodate all of your everyday needs not fitting into a regular, predictable, daily commute, why the hell put up with schedules, delays and snooty unionized public transport employees?
In Europe, you can make do without a private vehicle because pretty much everything is within walking (or bicycling) distance. Yes, your grocery loads are smaller than here in the U.S., but that’s not a problem. You just go more often. Remember: Everything is nearby. Besides, anybody who has actually tried transporting himself and a huge load of groceries on public transportation has only tried it once. It is not an experience you want to repeat.
None of this is true for the majority of the U.S. In Texas, which I bring up because that is where I live, you’re dead without a vehicle. Nothing is “close by.” Besides, you try to convince a Texan to walk to the grocery store in 110 degrees with 89% humidity. Go ahead. Wear a bullet-proof vest too.
We’re just not packed enough, and we happen to like it that way. If we wanted to be sardines, we’d grow fucking fins. And mass transportation isn’t a viable business model unless you have a huge mass of clustered individuals in need of transport.
And one more thing, and that’s where Europe comes in again: It doesn’t work over there either. Mass transportation is yet another of those money holes that run with constant, massive deficits, which is why it’s pretty much all nationalized since that’s the only way you can get the taxpayers to pick up the tab.
If you can’t get it to work in Europe, you can’t get it to work anywhere. Period.
And here’s the short version for those who just want to make the argument in one sentence. It’s a good one too because it applies to everything, not just “high speed rail.”
“If a business can be run profitably, THEN SOMEBODY IS ALREADY DOING IT!”
No, we didn’t think that one up. It used to be taught in school. 2nd grade, actually. Before it was replaced with “Fisting 101”, “How to Roll on a Condom 101” and “How to Convince Yourself that Being a Fucking Loser Makes you SPESHUL 101.”
Thinking that politicians and bureaucrats with absolutely, positively ZERO experience in running anything anywhere other than into the ground can come up with something that private individuals whose very existence and ability to pay their bills haven’t thought of is so skull-crushingly daft that individuals suffering from it ought to be forcibly sterilized before they can pass their terminal retardation on to future, innocent generations.
Thatisall.
The amount of money they are proposing to build it is absurdly low. Maricopa county built 20 miles of train to nowhere and spent 5 billion to do it. No one pays to ride it and it put hundreds of small businesses out of business during construction. Average speed 22 MPH. Thats 34 KPH for you Berry.
Having been stationed in Germany, I can attest to the practicality of everything being “close by.” I remember going to a sergeant’s house over the holidays and his German wife went to the store seven times in a five hour period. She walked every time. As for the rail system, or Bahnhof. It was a great way to get from… Read more »
Lets call this what it is. A 53 billion payola giveaway to the unions with the full knowlege that the funding is not enough and will have to be upped, and upped again while the construction drags on, the greens fight it in the courts and the spotted desert cockroach has to get tunnels in place first. And all the… Read more »
Yeah, let’s do it. After all, Amtrak has been such a huge success.
Once again proving that the traitorcrats don’t have a clue how to do anything besides launder tax money to their donors.
Hmmm…..I smell a huge windfall in government subsidies. Time to call my broker.
What the fuck is it with liberals and their fucking trains???
I have actually seen a light rail system that was both convenient and made money! It was in West Berlin before the wall fell. Sorry I do not wish to recreate those conditions again! Gave 22 years of my life to see that damn wall come down and will not stand by while another one is built, unless of course… Read more »
LC Aggie Sith, a goddess, only different, G.G.O.R. says:
They like to make them run on time.
So as not to upset the schedule of their camps.
I’ve been to Buchenwald. Never again.
Perhaps in planning for the future when they arrange for all of us to move out of the country and into the city’s like most of Europe it will make it more efficient to gather the masses for transport to the reeducation camps. When I first heard of this I thought ( right ) .What a great way to cut… Read more »
It would make far more sense to extend our canal network. Barges will have just as many riders as their proposed rail system (none), but unlike a rail system that just sits there and rusts, with canals you could catch fish. Write your legislator and tell them that carp is better than crap.
Let me tell you about light rail. If you want to go from the suburbs to downtown Chicago, it’s decent. That is, if you want substandard wages, pay an insane amount of money, and have time to kill. It takes 4 hours, at least to get from the south suburbs to the northern suburbs. And that is if the stars… Read more »
I ride Amtrak once a year from D.C. down to NC during the family’s Thanksgiving reunion. There are a few advantages to it: The cost of two business class seats can be cheaper than plane tickets, I have legroom (Which is always a problem), I don’t get frisked at the gate and I don’t deal with Beltway traffic during a… Read more »
I’ve seen a few rail-based mass transit systems that work well. Singapore and Hong Kong are two of the best. But, as Misha noted, these are densely-populated cities that cover relatively small geographic areas–the ideal place for mass transit to thrive. Both are run on a for-profit basis, with government playing a significant role in both, but in different ways.… Read more »
Same shit, different day. The high speed rail they want here in Kalifornia reminds me so very much of another way of employing either illegals or union workers, and damn few else. Considering goerrnment success in rebuiling the Bay Bridge since the eighty-nine quake…it is still under construction, I tend to take a most jaundiced view of such schemes. Just… Read more »
Emperor Misha I says:
HA! Too right!!
Response to LC Aggie Sith, a goddess, only different, G.G.O.R. @:
A lot of people on wellfare are afraid to fly.
But mass transport makes it sooo much easier for mass continuous surveillance. Notice that guy tooling along in his Hyundai or Camry, he’s listening to Limbaugh or Beck on his radio, ar maybe if he’s driving with his meighbor, they’re discussing he need to resist Obongo. Carpooling to work is a step in the right left direction, because with several… Read more »
LC Gunsniper says:
Plus it’s really hard to make out in a crowded train.
Dear Americans, please stop O’Bambi from using that much money and at least twice more. The Swiss have a nice train system where the subsidies make up about half of the budget, and the Deutsche Bundesbahn is not much better, apart from the fact that their trains are even more decrepit and unpunctual than the Swiss train system. Mass public… Read more »
americanexpat beat me to it. MTR actually works, but it also has the government as majority stakeholder, and you’re only dealing with 426 sq. miles. That’s smaller than some counties in the US. The geographical structure is simply not there for rail in most places. But then, Osabama and his comrades really have only the vaguest idea of the existence… Read more »