Metro Jacksonville

QuoteGOP critic calls Joe Biden's $53 billion high-speed rail plan 'insanity'

By Daniel B. Wood Daniel B. Wood â€" Tue Feb 8, 8:39 pm ET ???

Los Angeles â€" Vice President Joe Biden Tuesday proposed that the US government infuse $53 billion into a national high-speed rail network. The announcement was met immediately by deep skepticism from two House Republicans that could be crucial to the plan's success, raising questions about whether it can clear Capitol Hill.

House Transportation Committee Chair Rep. John Mica (R) of Florida said previous administration grants to high-speed rail projects were a failure, producing "snail speed trains to nowhere." He called Amtrak a "Soviet-style train system" and said it "hijacked" nearly all the administration's rail projects.

Meanwhile, Railroads Subcommittee Chair Rep. Bill Shuster (R) of Pennsylvania said Mr. Biden's plan was "insanity," adding: "Rail projects that are not economically sound will not 'win the future' " â€" coopting the slogan President Obama coined in his State of the Union address.

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With Republicans controlling the House and dedicating themselves to deep budget cuts, any new spending proposed by the White House will face stiff scrutiny. But Congressman Shuster offers some hope of compromise. On Jan. 28 in Hartford, Conn., he proclaimed his support for expanding high-speed rail in the Northeast, backing a network that could stretch from Montreal to Washington, D.C.

"This is the most congested region in the country. High-speed rail here could be profitable," he said.

Biden's planAccording to the plan laid out Tuesday by Biden, the first step of the six-year plan would be to invest $8 billion to develop or improve three types of interconnected corridors:

Core express corridors would form the backbone of the national high-speed rail system, with electrified trains traveling on dedicated tracks at speeds of 125 to 250 m.p.h or higher.

Regional corridors would lay the foundation for future high-speed service, with trains traveling between 90 to 125 m.p.h.

Emerging corridors would provide travelers with access to the larger national high-speed network and travel at as much as 90 m.p.h.

To backers, the benefits of the plan are twofold. First, it would give a much-needed boost to America's spending on infrastructure. And second, it would provide jobs for the economic recovery.

“If you look at the last 100 years, it has been large public-works projects which have pulled our nation out of every recession,” says Barry LePatner, author of “Too Big to Fall: America’s Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward.”

Mr. LePatner notes that the building of the Erie Canal opened the Northeast in 1819, the transcontinental railroad connected the populated East to the developing West, and the interstate highway system built under Eisenhower ââ,¬Å"all opened up vast reservoirs of trade and economic investment.ââ,¬

He suggests that studies show $1 billion spent on infrastructure remediation produces between 18,000 and 34,000 jobs. "Twenty-five to 35 percent of that then comes back in taxes, and the other multiplies in geometric ratios as spending on food, clothing, shelter, and other goods,ââ,¬

Big projects, big delaysBut building high-speed rail is no easy process, says Leslie McCarthy, a high-speed rail expert at Villanova University's College of Engineering. “Whether or not a bill would or should pass is the easiest part of all this,” she says. “The bigger part of the question is purchasing the land, getting right of ways, zoning issues, environmental impact assessments, laying dedicated tracks in a reasonable amount of time.”

She says the typical US highway project can be held up anywhere from three to five years at the low end to 12 to 20 years at the high end. “Legislators and the public aren’t aware of the number of federal, state, and local laws that agencies have to comply with that can’t be gotten around,” she adds.

In fact, the very thing that makes the Northeast so attractive for high-speed rail â€" its population density â€" could also make it the most difficult place to build. “There is so much population in the Northeast corridor that I don’t know if there is even enough room for the dedicated tracks needed for high-speed rail,” says Professor McCarthy. “And if the distances you are going are not sufficient to make efficient use of the high speeds, what’s the point?”

Wise investment or money pit?Critics agree. Only two rail corridors in the world â€" France's Paris to Lyon line and Japan's Tokyo to Osaka line â€" cover their costs, says Ken Button, director of the Center for Transportation Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

“Both of these are the perfect distance for high-speed rail, connect cities over flat terrain with huge populations that have great public transportation to get riders to the railway,” he says, dismissing French claims that other lines make money. He says they calculate costs in ways which ignore capital costs.

To supporters of high-speed rail expansion, however, US transportation must move beyond its reliance on oil. High-speed rail is the only form of intercity transportation that has a 45-year record of moving people without oil, says Anthony Perl, professor of political science at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute.

“That’s why 30 countries around the world have done this and the US and Canada are just laggards," he says. "If people want to get where they are going between cities they are going to need high-speed rail because flying and driving will only become more and more costly.”

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/362107;_ylt=AvYzYYjVzKg23lvFrwT1UctzfNdF

This writer seems to think so:

http://reason.com/archives/2005/12/01/amtrak-sucks (http://reason.com/archives/2005/12/01/amtrak-sucks)

Too bad Mica is so poorly imformed!! We should wish we had a soviet style high speed train like the one from Moscow to Saint Petersburg!!

Speeds of 250 km/hour!!!!

Somebody please inform Mica and send Mica this map:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Europe

Funny how the Republican posters on metrojacksonville won't deride a fellow Republican's Lies!!

Quote from: JMac on February 09, 2011, 04:06:57 PM
This writer seems to think so:

http://reason.com/archives/2005/12/01/amtrak-sucks (http://reason.com/archives/2005/12/01/amtrak-sucks)

Well whenever you deal with the Reason or Heritage Foundation it is always wise to remember P.T. Barnum's famous quote, one which I will take certain liberty's with.

"There's an ASSHOLE born every minute!"

OCKLAWAHA

wow Faye...250 km/hr....that's just over 150mph....which Florida HSR will reach as well!

Quote from: FayeforCure on February 10, 2011, 06:18:02 PM
Too bad Mica is so poorly imformed!! We should wish we had a soviet style high speed train like the one from Moscow to Saint Petersburg!!

Speeds of 250 km/hour!!!!

Somebody please inform Mica and send Mica this map:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Europe

Funny how the Republican posters on metrojacksonville won't deride a fellow Republican's Lies!!

Don't be so sure he was talking about speed here. I believe he is generally WRONG about Amtrak, in a broad and general way, agree that Amtrak is a Soviet Style Rail System.

The fact that Amtrak was given a list of "end point terminals," before they ever turned a wheel was evidence of Stalin's ghost... IE: There were no choices of routes based on business principals, and apparently Congress or the President or some People's Commissar of the day, thought all trains "flew non-stop."

There was a mandate that the company MUST be for-profit.

There was no clearly defined relationship between the operating railroads and Amtrak, which was quickly interpreted as "Put the passenger train in the hole as the freights charge past..."

There was never a performance standard.

It was KNOWN that the dome car, either coach, lounge or diner was America's favorite, so Amtrak wasn't permitted to order any.

Track that you wouldn't have sent your mother-in-law on, were suddenly "passenger railroad," with disastrous results, such as the National Limited, Washington DC - St. Louis, creeping across Indiana at 10 mph.

The selection of trains and routes was worse then then a atamasco bouquet at a Romanov dinner party.

They must have had a Bolshevik choose the equipment as our nation plunged from about 20,000 usable passenger cars to less then 4,000 overnight, and not a matching set to be found. This one little fact is about 75% of the reason Amtrak started off with a black eye. Imagine, Northern Pacific Railroad had coaches with EXTREME heaters in them, Seaboard Coast Line Cars didn't, others had steam appliances and heat, some were electric, and the electric came in all shapes and sizes. When the supposed "best looking" cars from all the railroads got mixed, NOTHING MATCHED OR MATED. This hose wouldn't connect to that hose, this plug wouldn't fit... ah hell this car doesn't even have a socket, etc... So Amtrak was running trains to Miami approaching 120 degrees inside, dark trains across California without electric power, and trains across the Pacific Northwest that had ice forming INSIDE the windows, but don't worry the AC WAS ON.

Not even the Tsar himself could have sorted out the mess they made of things, and understand this wasn't because as the Heritage, Pew, and similar "foundations" said, trains were 19th century technology, but because the duma in Washington doesn't know their ass from a hole in a frozen Petrograd lake.

Worse still, when equipment was finally ordered, years late, the trains were stripped of personality becoming nameless vehicles with a typically dull GI issue motif.

Next add the fact that all of this was to happen with a bare minimum of money, which would be calculated out on a year to year basis, and given to Amtrak as a direct grant. So unlike the airline, highway and waterway industries which get BILLIONS in hidden money through government operations like the Army Corps of Engineers, FAA, FHA, etc. money that hardly anyone would or could track. Amtrak got a check right in front of CBS, ABC, CNN, NBC, and immediately the excrement hit the mechanical ventilating device.  Sweltering passengers, frozen passengers, 10 mile per hour track, stations that nobody claimed or maintained, and two stupid mandates.

MAKE MONEY

SERVE X - Y - AND Z and do it like this...

Yeah, it was worse then Soviet Style, and the government is so damn slow to react that if they were a horse race, the jockey's could keep diary's of the trip.

...And the best part is? After all the smoke clears and and the music stops...?

IT WAS THE REPUBLICANS THAT ORGANIZED AND LAUNCHED IT UNDER TRICKY DICKY.

OCKLAWAHA   (http://thumb5.webshots.net/t/82/182/2/20/70/2886220700104969885rtwfkU_th.jpg)

Ock, what you are saying is that what Amtrak has suffered from is gross mismanagement which has occurred over both Democratic and Republican administrations. This, of course, is a central theme of the Republican doctrine that anything the government manages, it screws up. I personally think nothing is black and white... yes Amtrak has been a mismanagement nightmare, on the other hand, it serves a vital public purpose and needs to continue.

The solution to this is not to try to shut Amtrak down, its to manage the service efficiently. Unfortunately, Amtrak is a political football... and given today's politics, everybody is taking sides and nobody is offering reasonable solutions.

Republicans plan is a private company will come in take over operation from amtrak and make profit and will not need tax money  support, but all trains in the world get some kind of tax money support.

Quote from: middleman on February 10, 2011, 10:32:29 PM
Ock, what you are saying is that what Amtrak has suffered from is gross mismanagement which has occurred over both Democratic and Republican administrations.

I don't think Ock's point was that Amtak has suffered from gross mismanagment...rather, it was dealt a $#!tty hand, and Richard Nixon was the dealer.  I'm pretty sure Ock agrees that Amtrak serves a "vital purpose."

Quote from: yapp1850 on February 10, 2011, 10:51:05 PM
Republicans plan is a private company will come in take over operation from amtrak and make profit and will not need tax money  support, but all trains in the world get some kind of tax money support.

The Republicans flirted with the idea when George W. Bush was president, but did NOTHING about the proposal to privatize Amtrak.  Inaction is what government does best!

Quote from: middleman on February 10, 2011, 10:32:29 PM
Ock, what you are saying is that what Amtrak has suffered from is gross mismanagement which has occurred over both Democratic and Republican administrations. This, of course, is a central theme of the Republican doctrine that anything the government manages, it screws up. I personally think nothing is black and white... yes Amtrak has been a mismanagement nightmare, on the other hand, it serves a vital public purpose and needs to continue.

The solution to this is not to try to shut Amtrak down, its to manage the service efficiently. Unfortunately, Amtrak is a political football... and given today's politics, everybody is taking sides and nobody is offering reasonable solutions.

Better read that again... None of this was Amtrak's fault, it was the brain dead Bozo's in Washington that screwed the pooch. Today as then, nobody has stepped up to the plate to fix it with firm funding and railroad or railroad style management.

It does serve a need, a huge need, a need many, many times bigger then the Amtrak map would otherwise indicate. Try buying a ticket from Jacksonville to:

Cincinnati
Louisville
Chicago
Detroit
Cleveland
St. Louis
Kansas City
Birmingham
Montgomery
Mobile
New Orleans
Atlanta
Nashville
Chattanooga
Knoxville
Ashville

See what I mean?

OCKLAWAHA

Yes I am ready for the 145kph Amtrak up the FEC Miami to Jax.