High speed rail comes to California

[telemann.livejournal.com]

California's high speed rail will start with a spur between Bakersfield and Fresno. The spur has earned some giggles from conservatives, considering how relatively small those two cities are. But this is the start of a high speed rail line that will eventually extend from San Francisco to San Diego. Federal money from the stimulus bill passed in 2010 has jump-started the project, with additional monies from Wisconsin and Ohio (the Republican governors of those states did not accept the Federal grants).

The construction will create 150,000 jobs in California, and some estimates have projected nearly 650,000 permanent jobs will be created along the rail corridor. The project will help reduce overtaxed roads in California, and will remove more than one million vehicles from the state's roads and freeways; and it will also lessen California's dependence on foreign oil by up to 12.7 million barrels per year. Estimates vary from 22 million to up to 96 million riders per year). The final cost of the entire project varies by source, but some estimates have been as high as 81 billion dollars. It's estimated as spurs are completed, profits from those lines would help finance construction costs, making it somewhat cost effective. I think the entire project is a great one, and sure it's going to be very expensive, but then-- most big projects are. The United States has been falling significantly behind on infrastructure investments for some time, we need to do something about it!

Comments

[dwer.livejournal.com]

so, do you think that train turns a profit? If it didn't, would you shut it down?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Sure. In many cases, the services wouldn't exist, because there wouldn't be enough people participating to make it profitable. Do you think that there would be phone-lines to farms in the middle of freakin' nowhere if each farmer had to pay for the lines to be laid?

The bottom line is that if something were truly "good for the country" and would "increase the wealth of everyone", it would be an easy sell to get people to participate.

That presumes that both sides are telling the truth and acting in good faith. That didn't happen, for example, in the health care bill debate. Se: Death Panels.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I really don't have much of a response to this. We view government so fundamentally differently, at some point, we can no longer converse about it. For example, I'll suggest that a company will only do something if their profit motive is sufficiently fulfilled, so you'll rarely get enough people to sign up for something like this in advance -- and as you've said so often through your posts on this topic, you can't guarantee demand. So why would any company build a wind farm, or a railway? The funds required are so enormous that it would be extremely difficult to get that done. The government HAS those funds, HAS the organization, and every once in a while, HAS the political will to get those kinds of things done.

Most CEOs aren't Elon Musk. Most of them are small versions of Donald Trump, a guy who -- no joke -- bankrupted his own casino.