Anti-Rail Republicans Ideologically Oppose Trains

[yapp1850]

a lot has change  in florida  when  2002 high speed rail was done

[thelakelander]

The most significant change is the federal government funding most of it and the private sector willing to cover its annual O&M for 30 years.  That's about as good as it going to get, in terms of funding a mass transit system.

[tufsu1]

a lot has change  in florida  when  2002 high speed rail was done

the ridership forecasts won't be much different

[yapp1850]

the area were the station will be in tampa more have move in since 2002 and if the station opens by 2015 they are  starting to new apartments, 5 years  ago it use be a gost town after 5pm it's starting to have life.

[yapp1850]

i lot people in tampa don's like the downtown station but instead of  the airport or westshore area instead because there is nothing  in downtown a lot be think of a  gost town if the bars were not there after 5 pm.

[Ocklawaha]

The most significant change is the federal government funding most of it and the private sector willing to cover its annual O&M for 30 years.  That's about as good as it going to get, in terms of funding a mass transit system.

Yeah, and I'll pay y'alls electric bills for the next 30 years too... How far do you think that will go? When losses hit the several hundred million a year mark, these generous "partners," will bail off the sinking ship like rats.

OCKLAWAHA

[thelakelander]

I doubt the loses will amount to hole commonly referred to as roads.  Nevertheless, when that happens, the State would be smart to add more stations between Tampa and Orlando, promote TOD station districts along I-4 and convert it over to Caltrain commuter rail-like operations.  As a matter of fact, they should be looking to modify the land use along the route as we speak.  A significant portion of land along that corridor is already vested, so whether we like sprawl or not, its going to eventually fill in (excluding the Green Swamp of course).  It would be nice for future growth to be more sustainable than what has historically taken place along the corridor. 

In the meantime, hopefully Florida would have been smart enough to land a few HSR manufacturing plants that by then, would be buzzing with activity supplying railcars and HSR related equipment to other projects across the US.

[yapp1850]

talgo is talking opening a new plant  if they get the contract florida, washington state, chicago area to build the train cars.

[FayeforCure]

It is a well-known fact that Republicans are Ideologically Opposed to Mass Transit.

So for those who are NOT denialists of this bitter fact, here are some tips put together to schmooze Republicans with:

Transportation bills of the last decade have enjoyed a terrific amount of bipartisan support, thanks perhaps to a flood of earmarks and a lack of any strong federal mandates therein. But this year (or next year? or 2011?) we’re getting down to brass tacks. We’re turning the ship of state. We’re charting a new course, our leaders tell us. Which means it’s time to find out what kind of bipartisan support there may be for large-scale reforms, including perhaps a stronger focus on rail and transit, or an increase in the gas tax.

Many Democrats have been championing such reforms for years, but there have been a few prominent conservative voices in favor of more and better transit and intercity passenger rail as well. One of them is William Lind, director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation and the co-author, with the late Paul Weyrich, of the recent book Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation.

Lind was aboard the California Zephyr earlier this month. He was wise in the ways of train passengership, a fan of pipe smoke and brandy, and scornful of computers. He also had some very clear and strong ideas about America’s transportation infrastructure, and what it needs.

MATT DELLINGER: Your book is very interesting. It’s a conservative argument for public transportation, but it’s also a guidebook for classic supporters of public transportation, on how to talk to conservatives.
WILLIAM LIND: That is essentially at the heart of all of our transit work.

So a Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus model. So what does a transit-loving liberal need to know when approaching an auto-loving conservative? What should they be prepared for, and what are the various points of leverage?
The most important thing that a liberal needs to know in talking to conservatives about public transportation is not to use liberal arguments.  You can’t argue for transit on the basis that the poor need it. Conservatives aren’t particularly interested in that. On the other hand, when you start talking about things like promoting and shaping economic development and redevelopment, that’s a big interest to conservatives. When you talk about offering transit that is of a quality that conservatives would actually want to useâ€"which usually means rail transportationâ€"they’re interested, because conservatives are just as tired as everybody else of sitting stuck in traffic.

And another argument you cover in the book is the idea that rail transportation is vital to national security?
National Security is always a big interest to conservatives and any time you can talk in those terms, you’re going to have their attention. Virtually every American knows that our greatest single national security vulnerability at the moment, the one that has enmeshed us in the middle east, is our dependence on foreign oil, most of it coming from unstable parts of the world. And this can drag us into unwanted wars, as it has it can result not only in high gas prices, like we had last summer, but in complete cutoffs like we had in ‘73 and ‘79, where events halfway around the world suddenly leave our gas stations without any gas to sell. And at present, if that happens, most Americans have no backup. Approximately half of Americans have no public transportation.

Only 25 percent have public transportation they even rate as satisfactory. We’re immediately in very serious trouble.

What should we do?
One of the chapters in the new book calls for a National Defense Public Transportation Act modeled on Eisenhower’s national defense interstate highway act that would recreate what we had up until the 1950s, which was the ability to go from anywhere in America to anywhere else in America without driving and without flying, through a network of buses and trains. An intelligent national transportation strategy would do more for enhancing America’s national security than more trillions for the pentagon could ever do.

But can’t one ignore that argument by saying that within five years we’ll all be driving electric cars?
Well, any expert on the automobile scene in America, first of all, knows that’s not true. Even if completely feasible electric cars are available in five years, it takes far longer than that to replace even half of the entire automobile fleet. So most Americans are going to be driving gas-fueled cars for a long time to come. And there’s no guarantee to say that those electric cars will have the performance to replace gas cars, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll be sold at affordable prices.

Conservatives don’t like betting on some Candyland promise of being saved by some new technology. The nice thing about electric railways is that all the technology was in place a century ago. We can electrify mainline railroads, build new streetcar and interurban lines, all with technology that was quite adequate to the task in 1909.

Is there a priority between intercity passenger rail and local streetcars?
The two are inherently complimentary. The reason you used to be able to get around so well in this country without a car is you took the train between cities, but then when you got to the strange city, you had the streetcar system to get around on. A major problem now is if you take the train to another city, how do you get around locally? Buses are very difficult for outsiders to understand where they go and when. With streetcars, you see the tracks. So people who have never ridden a system before feel a great deal more comfortable on streetcars than they do on a bus.

You’ve pointed out other virtues that rail holds over bus.
Yes, rail transit of all types provides a much more pleasant ride experience than does a bus. In general, no one will take a bus who doesn’t have to. Buses largely provide transportation for the poorâ€"for the transit-dependent. When under the Bush Administration, the Department of Transportation said “We’ll give you buses instead of rail,” they’re making a fundamental and too often deliberate mistake. Because the two are not fungible.

But buses over rail saves money, isn’t that the argument?
Sure, they’re trying to save money. But they’re also trying to get people to continue to drive. If you give people buses, they buy cars and drive them. That’s why General Motors and other corporations starting in the 20s began to buy up streetcar systems and convert them to buses. It was not to sell buses. It was to sell cars. They knew if you give people buses, they will say “I’ve got to get a car. I’m not going to ride this thing.”

And I know this is not all academic for you. You love riding trains, and grew up riding trains in Cleveland?
I ride trains wherever I can, both in this country and in Europe. I’m old enough, being now 62, that I remember the streetcars in Cleveland. As a small boy I used to take them from Lakewood downtown with my mother and my grandmother and I always loved riding them. In contrast, within half an hour of getting on a bus, I invariably threw up. Never on a train.

I was riding intercity trains from the time I was carried aboard them in my bassinet at that age of three months, because I had family up in western Pennsylvania and western Maryland along the B&O, which had wonderful passenger trains. By the time I was eight, I was making those trips by myself. This was America in the fifties. An eight-year-old could travel alone by train perfectly safely. And I loved the trips.

There is something nerve-racking and hollow about making long trips in a car.
Driving those distances, particularly if you’re the driver, is no fun at all. You’ve got to watch the road in front of you and too often, in congested traffic, keep your eyes fixed on the bumper of the car in front of you. With a train you don’t have any of that. You sit back, you relax, somebody else takes care of getting the train where it needs to go. And trains are social. You meet people in the dining car.

With the car, you ‘re just stuck sitting in your little seat on an interstate with very little to see. You’ve got to worry about the car breaking down, you worry about the weather, you worry about accidents. Driving is quite simply no fun, unless you’re shunpikingâ€"

http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/06/29/how-to-convince-conservatives-to-support-public-transportation-william-lind-explains/

[Ocklawaha]

The entire article is about bi-partisan support that is expected for the nations rail system in the coming 2 years, and how to talk to conservative's about the same. How in the hell do you get that twisted into a carte blanche accusal of ALL Republicans?

After all it was a Republican that gave us AMTRAK!

OCKLAWAHA

[JeffreyS]

Faye great article.  It suggests that Republicans have a misguided negative opinion of public transportation rather than an ideological opposition to rail.
The author seemed to believe you catch more flies with honey.
As for me I am wary of Republicans but hopeful and like the articles approach.

[BridgeTroll]

Faye great article.  It suggests that Republicans have a misguided negative opinion of public transportation rather than an ideological opposition to rail.
The author seemed to believe you catch more flies with honey.
As for me I am wary of Republicans but hopeful and like the articles approach.

Faye can only see what she expects to see.  Blinders anyone?

[FayeforCure]

Faye great article.  It suggests that Republicans have a misguided negative opinion of public transportation rather than an ideological opposition to rail.
The author seemed to believe you catch more flies with honey.
As for me I am wary of Republicans but hopeful and like the articles approach.

Faye can only see what she expects to see.  Blinders anyone?

The blinders are all yours Bridge.

JeffreyS, it's much more than just a misguided negative opinion of public transportation..........that is clear over and over again:

a loss of confidence in the principle of government investment and planning, in the face of the demonstrated incapacity of the contemporary American government to do an adequate job of investment and planning. That incapacity is largely due to conservative political opposition to government intervention in the economy, either for ideological reasons or because it entails higher taxes or because it treads on the toes of vested business interests. But the fact that the American government can't get its act together to create a decent modern passenger rail network doesn't mean that governments in general are incapable of doing so, or that it isn't a good idea. Europe, Japan, and China seem perfectly capable of doing this job. A more narrow response to the rail problem, specifically, would be to encourage a BOT deal in which the government uses eminent domain to create the rail corridor and turns to the private sector to raise the capital, build it and perhaps run it. But, again, this doesn't question the need for the government to plan national infrastructure, which seems to me to be pretty hard to gainsay.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/09/elections_and_ideology

[tufsu1]

well Faye...your quoted piece above notes several reasons why conservatives oppose government intervention in the economy...so 2 things

1. It says conservatives, not Republicans
2. It is talking about economic issues in general, not rail specificaly

[Ocklawaha]

Faye great article.  It suggests that Republicans have a misguided negative opinion of public transportation rather than an ideological opposition to rail.
The author seemed to believe you catch more flies with honey.
As for me I am wary of Republicans but hopeful and like the articles approach.

Faye can only see what she expects to see.  Blinders anyone?

A more narrow response to the rail problem, specifically, would be to encourage a BOT deal in which the government uses eminent domain to create the rail corridor and turns to the private sector to raise the capital, build it and perhaps run it.

Fat chance of this happening with any scale Faye, it's farther from Pensacola to Key West then it is from London to Hamburg via Paris! Florida doesn't have the population or the density to make such a venture profitable. Any company, expert, investor, or supplier that get's in the Florida HSR project with much of their own capital is looking to go down in flames, multiply that times a country that is 3,000 miles across and the problem grows exponentially. Coconut palms, sage brush, pine trees, and saguaro cactus don't ride trains.

Passenger trains took down the Penn Central, ie: New York Central, Pennsylvania, Leigh Valley, Central Railroad of New Jersey, Erie Lackawanna, Reading, and New Haven Railroads, as well as damaged the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific, Chicago Milwaukee St. Paul and Pacific, Missouri-Kansas-Texas, Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee, and Illinois Terminal Railroad, just to name a few. The shear scale of a private investment in US HSR will bring down Virgin, and any other company unlucky enough to be sucked in by speculative numbers from a state or country that is NOT SERIOUS about rail. Last FY we spent 4,065,000,000 on all rail, of every type, in the entire country, and at the same time spent 12,082,000,000 on aviation, and 41,846,000,000 on highways.*

Anti-Rail Democrats such as Georgia's Frank Saunders, Ohio's John Glenn, don't help advance the cause either. These Democrats and a host of Republican's and Independents continue to suffer from regressive hallucinations by untrained political transportation experts who make their living espousing propaganda for pro-road causes.

OCKLAWAHA
*NARP Data