Hard to say. That’s not the point, though - the point is that the money had already been spent.
To re-ask:
What percentage of highway construction and maintenance costs are recovered by tolls from the users? Is every highway a toll road? Why not?
Yes. If anything, we should be putting money into local transport systems, and old-fashioned low-speed passenger rail on existing lines between cities.
The project was not funded by passenger fares.
In the same way, construction of highways are not pre-paid by motorists who hope to use them.
I’m always amazed why people think that mass transit should be fully funded by users, while the highway system should be completely paid for by taxes…
I know very little about this issue, but this line cracks me up.
Actually, aren’t they continually paying for them with every gallon of gasoline they purchase?
I’ve always thought the comparison to air travel was interesting. Travel somewhere by air and you’ll be carried by a private company dependent on publicly funded infrastructure (airports and en route traffic control systems). Travel by rail in the U.S. and you’ll be on a publicly-funded carrier operating on mostly privately-owned rights-of-way.
If Florida doesn’t want the money, fine. Send it to the Northeast to make the Boston-New York-Washington corridor even faster and bring in more riders.
BHA-HAW-HAW-HAW-HAW.
Seriously, given California’s congressional delegation had never gotten together till what, the early 90’s (Cold War blues), I’m pretty sure its about a likely as a high speed rail in . . . Florida. And should they try, my guess is Florida will try to recast the money into some other project. I dunno–coastal levees for the impending rise in sea level?
Hell of a lot more than the 8% ticket buyers would be covering for the Silver Streak
Declining the fast rail line money is just the start; I think the majority of Floridians will come to wish they had never heard of Scott, much less voting him into office.
Our new (Ohio) governor killed the high speed rail program in Ohio, too. The three people who routinely travel from Cincinnati to Cleveland were really ticked.
In a highly traveled corridor such as the west or northeast coast, I completely support the rail system. It makes sense. It reduces congestion on the highways. It’s cleaner. Most importantly, people will use it.
But for the rest of the country, where travel patterns are completely random, it doesn’t.
No fucking shit.
For those of us who actually LIVE, (or lived recently in my case) in the central FLorida area, losing this rail blows big time. The-I4 Corridor (tampa to Daytona beach) is one of the busiest, heavily problematic roads in the state. It is a huge artery cor commerce, and pretty much the only game in town in a lot of areas without adding significant mileage to your trip or using private toll roads. A high speed rail would have been awesome for the huge glut of day commuters to the city of Orlando and it’s local areas for work, and good for quick and easy access to the beaches by the users. That would have been a boon to the coastal communities that have been hit hard by flagging tourist numbers. Overall it would have significantly eased traffic issues, helped out tourism, improved commerce times through lightened traffic, and greatly increased our ability to improve and repair the highway which is badly in need of serious work.
I read this in the paper this morning and just sighed. I couldn’t even get worked up by it; it’s just part of the general malaise that’s affected me, caused by the cognitive dissonance of repeated strident cries of “Republicans = Good for the economy! Democrats = Tax and Spend!”
God save us all from ideologues. Give me an intelligent pragmatist any day.
Immaterial. If Obama’s for it, they’re against it. It’s that simple.
Well, if you’re speaking in terms of federal outlays, that’s not true at all:
The problem with high speed rail is it’s a forever-drain on S&L governments, taking money away from stuff they need to spend it on. They will lose money every year, while making a negligible impact on traffic. Why the administration would shackle states like this, I don’t know, maybe as a sop to his union buddies who got him elected.
As the WaPo put it on Monday, the case against high speed rail is overwhelming.
Some Florida residents will see the move as saving them many, many more billions in operating subsidies. Given the experience of Amtrak, “high speed rail” will be a money pit.
*"Rail buffs argue that subsidies for passenger service simply offset the huge government support of highways and airways. The subsidies “level the playing field.” Wrong. In 2004, the Transportation Department evaluated federal transportation subsidies from 1990 to 2002. It found passenger rail service had the highest subsidy ($186.35 per thousand passenger-miles) followed by mass transit ($118.26 per thousand miles). By contrast, drivers received no net subsidy; their fuel taxes more than covered federal spending. Subsidies for airline passengers were about $5 per thousand miles traveled. (All figures are in inflation-adjusted year 2000 dollars.)
High-speed rail would transform Amtrak’s small drain into a much larger drain. Once built, high-speed-rail systems would face a dilemma. To recoup initial capital costs - construction and train purchases - ticket prices would have to be set so high that few people would choose rail. But lower prices, even with favorable passenger loads, might not cover costs. Government would be stuck with huge subsidies."*
It’s very likely that projections for construction and operating costs are wildly optimistic (given our past history with Amtrak and government projects of all types). Is it worth it in much of the country (where state budgets are already heavily strained) to have [del]high[/del] modestly speeded-up passenger rail?
Rail networks? Probably not. The Florida high-speed link is a single artery connecting the two cities in Florida between which people travel most often. It’s projected that 70% of the passengers would be tourists who fly into Orlando and will be mostly be staying in Tampa, or vice versa. Disney has already offered to make up any shortfall in initial capital outlays between the federal funds the actual cost of construction, incidentally.