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Boondoggle: U.S. unveils $53 billion in high-speed rail plan
The U.S. government will dedicate $53 billion over six years to build new high-speed rail networks and make existing ones faster, Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday.
The private industry couldn't figure out how to get it to make money, so I guess the government will have to step in.
The initiative will allow the Department of Transportation to choose corridors for the new projects and increase U.S. use of the passenger rails, the White House said in a statement.
Thereby cementing its future for the time being.
President Barack Obama's budget for fiscal year 2012, which is to be unveiled next week, includes $8 billion for the plan. The rest of the money will be allocated over the six-year time period.
So I guess what they mean to say is $24B over the next 12 years. Present value, of course. Oh, and did you include the price of subsidies to keep ridership at reasonable levels?
Obama has said he wants to target investments in areas such as infrastructure while reducing spending to tackle the budget deficit.
Silly voter, don't you know that you can't save money if you aren't spending it?
"As President Obama said in his State of the Union, there are key places where we cannot afford to sacrifice as a nation -- one of which is infrastructure," Biden said in a statement.
Roads. Water. Sewer. Energy. Aren't there already enough opportunities to buy votes and redistribute wealth to friends and cronies? Sure, you will find people to ride this train. But you won't find enough people to ride it at the prices you will need to charge to fund it. Politicians for the next two or three generations will have to come up with creative ways to funnel money to it before it is condemned and has to be "rebuilt".
High speed rail is a mantra for liberals. It's the cure-all for our transportation ills, whatever those are.

Actually I thought we had high-speed 'rail' already, in the sense of cheap, reliable city to city transit -- we have Southwest Airlines.

It's cheaper to buy planes and build an airport than to buy trains and build rail. And, if you're wrong in your market analysis for transit between two cities, it's easy to reuse planes on another route. Whereas with rail, you're stuck.

High speed rail is precisely what's wrong with our liberal citizens these days. It's a cure in search of a problem. It's a boondoggle. It's foolishness, and it's going to spend a lot of money we need elsewhere.
I can't for the life of me figure why piston engine airliners haven't made a comeback since they're so much more fuel efficient than jets.

Posted by: gorb 2011-02-08
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=315628