While we may hope that without the highways into the core would have meant better cores, it could have also meant that the core would have moved to the end of the highway instead.

 

Theoretically, that's a risk. But in reality it hasn't happened. The Victoria Transport Policy Institute has done some interesting research in comparing the amount of highways within urban centers in U.S. cities vs. international cities. American cities have more highways in them and thus have more parking areas, more drive-throughs, more abandonment and greater depopulation than their international counterparts, they found. See:

http://www.vtpi.org/land.pdf

 

But this is a discussion that ought to be at a land use thread, such "The sprawl of it all." To bring this discussion back on topic, see VTPI's new report "Evaluating Rail Transit Criticism":

http://www.vtpi.org/railcrit.pdf

 

I think this can be demonstrated also by the fact that some smaller cities in the US have freeways that just skirted the outer edges and those cities have not seen a shift in the urban core (places like Lexington, KY; Gainesville, FL; Tallahassee, FL; Greenville, SC; Erie, PA; and Jamestown, NY come to mind).

 

EDIT: Oops, I read KJP's last paragraph after posting.  Sorry, moderators. :(

Good point....but KJP is right... this discussion is drifting into the "Ahh, The Sprawl of it All" thread....

Cross-posted from the Rethinking transport in USA section:

 

From the USDOT Secretary Ray Lahood's blog....

 

http://fastlane.dot.gov/2009/06/public-transportation-delivers-public-benefits.html

 

June 02, 2009

Public transportation delivers public benefits

 

President Obama was elected to harness a national will to do things better.  One thing I think Americans would like to see improved is how transportation serves the communities in which they live.

 

We love our cars, but sometimes there can be a better way to get to work or to the beach, or simply to the drug store.  And providing Americans with those choices can also be good for the economy.

 

In fact, each 1% of regional travel shifted from automobile to public transit increases regional income about $2.9 million, resulting in 226 additional regional jobs. Other economic benefits include increased productivity, employment, business activity, investment and redevelopment.

 

Cities with well-established rail systems have less traffic congestion, lower traffic death rates, lower consumer expenditures on transportation, significantly higher per capita transit ridership, lower average per capita vehicle mileage, and higher transit service cost recovery than otherwise comparable cities with less or no rail transit service.

 

Moreover, whether in Houston, Texas, or Portland, Oregon, rail transit systems not only provide economic, but social and environmental benefits.

 

Social benefits of transit include improved public health, greater flexibility in trip planning and accessibility for non-drivers.

 

Rail travel consumes about a fifth of the energy per passenger-mile as automobile travel. Electric powered rail produces minimal air and noise emissions.

 

Many criticisms of rail transit investment are based on inaccurate or incomplete analysis. For example, transit critics often cite operating costs. This overlooks the significant returns that rail transit offers. In 2002, for example, rail transit required about $12.5 billion annually in public subsidy. However, these costs were offset several times over by $19.4 billion in congestion costs savings, $8.0 billion in roadway cost savings, $12.1 billion in parking cost savings, $22.6 billion in consumer cost saving, and $5.6 billion in reduced crash damages.

 

Developing public transportation increases choices, for drivers as well as riders. Developing public transportation makes sense.

I don't think the Capitol Beltway was built until much later than Ike. Wasn't the Beltway part of the same deal that allowed the Washington Metro to be built?

No. Planning for the Beltway started in 1950 and contruction began in 1957. What you are thinking about is what were known as the Inner and Outer Loop Beltways which were to be inside and outside the existing Beltway. The compromise was that the Metro would be built instead of an inner loop freeway for which they abandoned the idea of completing in 1977 due mostly to opposition from DC residents whose properties were to be condemned.

 

The Outer Loop Beltway was even more controversial and most of the proposals for it have been abandoned except for the Intercounty Connector (ICC) in Maryland, which was approved over staunch opposition.

They also successfully blocked the completion of I-95 through the district.  What is now I-395 travels in a tunnel underneath the Capitol Mall and dead-ends into New York Ave.  The total length of 395 is about one mile.  I-95 was to have traveled NW along the tracks that lead to Union Station, out to the beltway.  Many blame the blocking of I-95 for increasing traffic on the beltway, but in reality the amount of that increase is minor and it keeps a lot of truck traffic off of 395.

 

 

Stay on topic please...

O'Toole gets shot down...  :shoot:

 

 

Randal O'Toole: Taking Liberties With the Facts

http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/06/02/randal-otoole-taking-liberties-with-the-facts/

by Ryan Avent on June 2, 2009

 

The Cato Institute's Randal O'Toole gets under the skin of many of those interested in building a more rational and green metropolitan geography, but in many ways he's an ideal opponent. It would be difficult to concoct more transparently foolish arguments than his. The man is an engine of self-parody.  [  :laugh:]

 

 

 

Is this spaghetti bowl turning a profit? Photo: Infrastructurist...

 

 

Bringing in O'Toole or Cox = your arguments are intellectually bankrupt.

Here's a Phoenix light rail haters blog:

 

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2009/05/phoenix-light-rail-fail-half-my-light-rail-bet-settled.html

 

I don't know much about Phoenix, and it's surely one of the least dense environments through which light rail has been built.  20 miles of light rail in Cincinnati, as planned in the late 90's, as opposed to 20 miles in Phoenix, despite Phoenix being much larger, would have surely attracted much higher ridership per mile.  And it will take Phoenix decades to densify around this or any future lines. 

Bringing in O'Toole or Cox = your arguments are intellectually bankrupt.

 

Both of them run a monopoly over anything anti-rail that's published. 

Sometimes America is less capitalistic than some communist countries. Case in point: The quote in bold below was uttered in a communist country. We have yet to see America offer such an embrace of private investment in highway construction/operation. Still, that hasn't stopped some goofballs in this country from saying "Trains are socialism" with a straight face...

 

http://www.entrancechina.org/news.php?id=86406

 

Guangxi attracts private funding for highway expansion

 

May 11, 2009  Source:cctv.com 

 

China's southwestern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has been attracting private funding to finance its highway construction. The measure has helped the budget-short local government speed up the expansion of its highway network in the mountainous region.

..........

 

 

Li Xiaolin, Chief Engineer of Transportation Department of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region said "It's not good for the government to invest, construct and manage the highways all by itself. We had to introduce other players."

 

and......

 

China allows road investors to collect tolls as their pay-back. Guangxi has transferred the toll collection rights of 11 highways worth tens of billions of yuan in return for the investment. Earlier this year, 6 commercial banks also decided to participate in the business and provided 55 billion yuan for road construction. This has been an immense help for the 14 new highways in the region that received sufficient funding and started construction this year. 

June 28, 2009

Cincinnati Enquirer

Letters to the Editor

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090628/EDIT02/906280363/1019/EDIT/Streetcar+opposition+threatens+high-speed+rail

Streetcar opposition threatens high-speed rail

Imagine this: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland joins U.S. Dept. of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood later this year to announce Ohio will get $400 million in federal dollars for a Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati passenger rail line. Cincinnati will become a hub for the nation's new high-speed rail system.

 

Cleveland and Columbus quickly begin acquiring land for rail lines, crossings, stations or parking lots.

 

...

 

Don Mooney Jr. is a Cincinnati attorney and a longtime member of the Cincinnati Planning Commission, and serves as treasurer of Cincinnatians for Progress

Excellent letter... I'm surprised the Inkwire published it.

Cincinnati seems to have most of the ignorant cranks when it comes to rail.  What's below was posted in the comments:

 

Trains, planes and automobiles -- which of these doesn't fit?

Posted by PeterBronson at 6/30/2009 5:06 AM EDT on Cincinnati.com

 

 

 

Ohio's high-speed rail

 

What is it with Democrats and their trains? Makes you wonder if maybe they never got that Lionel set they wanted for Christmas.

 

Here in Cincinnati, the Democrat-dominated council and mayor have been yelling "All aboard" for two years to sell taxpayers on a $200 million trolley downtown.

 

The city can't cover its spending deficits and now has a huge and growing pension liability -- but that hasn't stopped the crowd at City Hall from building up steam to bring back streetcars that went out of business in Cincinnati 50 years ago.

 

Finally, we're hearing that maybe this is not the right time to push the plan, tear up streets and spend at least $200 million on a gamble that streetcars will revive one of the city's roughest neighborhoods. My guess is that there's a good reason for the sudden track change: Council members now running for re-election have had a hair-raising look at the polling on streetcars and suddenly realize that the trolley could be a one-way ride to defeat.

 

Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland keeps trying to sell the state on high-speed rail. The $400 million plan would be covered by federal stimulus spending -- meaning taxpayers like us. But where's the logic? The governor's price tag only scrathes the surface of costs to upgrade rails and install the train set. The line would also require ongoing subsidies because hardly anyone rides trains.

 

In Ohio, the high-speed train would be a loser, according to a study by the conservative Buckeye Institute, which reported:

 

Trains with a top speed of 110 mph will have average speeds of just 55 to 75 mph. Not only will that attract few people out of their cars, says the report, such trains will actually be less energy efficient and more polluting than driving.

 

"High-speed rail is an idea whose time has gone," says Randal O'Toole, a Cato Institute senior fellow and the report's author. "It is bad for taxpayers and bad for the environment."

 

Premium fares and a downtown orientation means that the main people riding these trains will be bankers, lawyers, government officials, and other high-income people who hardly need subsidized transportation. Not only will each federal income taxpayer pay $1,000 for someone else to ride the train, that passenger probably earns more than the average taxpayer.

 

Others have pointed out that without public transportation infrastructure, Ohio cities are not a good match for rail. Even people who rode a train to Columbus would probably have to rent a car when they arrived -- so it would be simpler, more convenient, less expensive and just as fast to simply drive there on the freeway.

 

Also from the report:

 

Upgrading the 450 miles of Ohio tracks in the FRAplan to run trains at 110 mph would cost taxpayers close to $1.6 billion, or nearly $140 for every Ohio resident. Subsidizing passenger trains over those routes will cost more than $30 million per year. Yet the average Ohioan will take a round trip on such trains only once every 17 years.

 

I've written on this topic many times, attended meetings and done a fair amount of reporting. What I discovered is that light rail, high-speed rail, streetcars and other throwback ideas for transportation have often been boondoggles for government spending.  For each heavily subsidized "success," there are more failures and complaints about increased congestion and poor ridership.

 

Now the same governor who wants 50 percent cuts in public libraries wants to spend a half-billion on a train nobody will ride?

I say we all chip in an buy train sets for the governor and city council. We could even throw in engineer hats and whistles. The money we save will be our own. 

 

By the way, here's the smoking gun with Sam Staley (co-founder and former president of the Buckeye Institute) and Gem Public Sector Services' economic impact analysis of the Ohio Hub, which Staley was involved in:

 

"The Ohio Rail Development Commission has engaged two teams of six noted economists to verify that answer and see exactly how Ohio may benefit from new business and development generated by

building the Ohio & Lake Erie Regional Rail/Ohio Hub Plan....

 

"The second team is headed up by Douglas Harnish of GEM Public Sector Services, with over 23

years in real estate development and evaluation. Joining him are economist Dr. Sam Staley of

Wright State University and former President of the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions..."

(http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/Rail/Programs/passenger/Ohio%20Hub%20%20Press%20Releases/20051216OhioHubEconomicImpactTeamsMeet.pdf).

 

Here's what Gem had to say:

 

“Gem concludes that construction of high-speed passenger rail is economically feasible and justifiable assuming an 80% federal construction match. By feasible, we believe the economic benefits justify the investment and the project will not be a burden on the State biennial budget..."

 

http://www2.dot.state.oh.us/ohiorail/Ohio%20Hub/Website/ordc/theproject.html

 

Here's Staley's bio from the BPI site: http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/bio/24

Thanks. This site can be a great resource to quickly find data, quotes and information which can be used to promote rail/transit or debunk the cranks.

The same characters as always:

 

Money train: The cost of high-speed rail

 

The president is pledging $13 billion for a high speed rail system, but some experts fear it will never cover its own costs.

 

By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Last Updated: July 2, 2009: 12:54 PM ET

 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- President Obama is pouring $13 billion into an ambitious high-speed rail project. Some say it will never make money. Some say it will. And still others say profit is not even the point.

 

Obama's plan is "to jump-start a potential world-class passenger rail" in 10 major corridors, linking cities within the Northeast, California, Florida and other regions with "bullet trains" that exceed 110 miles per hour. State governments are in the process of applying for the federal funds.

 

Find this article at:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/10/news/economy/high_speed_rail/index.htm 

 

 

So trains "could be a black hole"?  Like our roads have ever earned a profit?  Or our aviation system?  Even the common carrier passenger airline industry has netted zero profits over its 80+ year lifetime.  Even Greyhound has filed Chapter 11, what, twice since the 80s? 

 

It's really quite amusing that the Utts and Staleys out there always avoid this little detail.  Of course, it's also sad that the media never picks up on this. 

Gildone knows. He's been very involved in passenger rail advocacy for more than a decade.

Hmmm...how do these statements by Staley square with what he had to say about the Ohio Hub??? He's talking out of both sides of his mouth and is apparently fed the same way. He'll say whatever the outfit paying him wants him to say. Great gig. :roll:

 

Is it time for the Ohio Institute for Real World Solutions to issue a counter statement? :-D

I think it just did!

Joe Blundo liked the "release" by the Ohio Insitutute for Real World Solutions so much he put it on his blog:

 

http://blog.dispatch.com/blundo/

 

Enjoy.... :-D

 

Great blog post on the federal bailout of the West Virginia Turnpike in 1971:

 

http://thephonyconey.blogspot.com/2009/07/coast-its-all-same-pot.html

Here come the fear mongers who pretend the free market has ruled the transportation scene for the past 60 years. Instead, government destroyed choices and left us with only the car, underpriced and oversupplied...

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124683675332597955.html

 

OPINION JULY 6, 2009

Pay More, Drive Less, Save the Planet

To fight climate change, Washington wants you to take a bus.

By GABRIEL ROTH

 

What is the appropriate response to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, who as General Motors prepared to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection declared that he wants to "coerce people out of their cars"? One might be inclined to dismiss these words as overkill -- except for recently introduced legislation by some congressional heavy-hitters that would take us down this road.

 

.......

Here's some more enlightened discussion of Transportation Demand Management, which is what the feds have been doing for 60 years....

 

http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm49.htm

 

People Need to Drive

Critics often cite examples of high value trips (freight and business travel, commuting to school and work, visiting family and friends) as evidence that reducing automobile travel is harmful to consumers. But the existence of some high-value vehicle trips does not disprove the existence of many low-value vehicle trips that can be reduced. Many people are willing to reduce their automobile trips if given better travel options or modest incentives. For example, some people would like to walk, bicycle, use transit or telework rather than drive for some trips if they were more convenient or affordable. Similarly, a consumer might drive across town to a distant store or restaurant if roads are free and uncongested and parking is free, but if not will shop or eat closer to home (see Transportation Elasticities for information on the price sensitivity of vehicle travel).

 

TDM is not intended to eliminate all automobile use or an arbitrary set of vehicle trips: an efficient TDM program reduces low value automobile trips (that is, automobile trips that consumers consider of relatively low value either because the trips themselves are not very important or because they can be shifted to another time, mode or destination with little net loss), and so are most willing to forego in response to incentives. High value vehicle trips continue, and are often facilitated due to reduced traffic and parking congestion.

 

 

People Want to Drive

Critics often claim that “Americans (or Canadians, British, Germans, etc.) love the mobility provided by driving,” or, “Americans prefer big homes and wide opens spaces available in suburbs.” But there are all sorts of Americans with a wide range of travel and housing preferences. At the margin (that is, relative to current transport and land use patterns), many would prefer to drive less, use alternatives more, and living and live in more Accessible communities. For every indicator that Americans are hopelessly in love with driving and suburbs, there is another indicator that Americans want better alternatives. For example, homes in New Urbanist communities tend to command a higher value, communities with good transit service are experiencing increased transit ridership, and many Resort Communities are attractive due in part to their walkability.

 

Much of the evidence that Americans prefer automobile travel and sprawl development ignores the tradeoffs involved. Sure, many consumers would like to drive more and live in larger homes, if somebody else pays, but their preference for such improvements disappears, and their willingness to use other modes increases if they are required to pay the incremental costs.

 

Put another way, reduced automobile travel and shifts to other modes can provide savings to governments and businesses. For example, shifting a peak-period trip from automobile to public transit, ridesharing or nonmotorized modes can often save several dollars in avoided roadway and parking costs. When commuters are offered these savings, many prefer to drive less and use alternative modes more (Commuter Financial Incentives). It is therefore wrong to suggest that all Americans want to drive more and live in suburbs: many would prefer to drive less and live in more urban neighborhoods, provided that they have good options to choose from, and efficient pricing that reflects the incremental costs and savings involved in their decisions.

 

TDM Harms Consumers

Some critics claim that Transportation Demand Management is harmful to consumers and an unfair punishment to motorists (Orski, 2000; Mills, 1999; Green, 1995 Spindler, 1997; Dunn, 1998). They argue that automobiles are a superior form of transportation so any effort to reduce driving reduces consumer welfare. This argument ignores the fact that many TDM strategies use positive incentives, and the possibility that consumers may sometimes prefer to drive less and use transportation alternatives more.

 

The majority of TDM strategies rely on positive incentives, as illustrated in Table 1. These positive incentives improve the transportation and land use options available to consumers or provide financial rewards to reduce vehicle use. With such incentives, consumers who continue driving are no worse off, and those who reduce mileage must consider themselves directly better off or they would not change their transport patterns.

 

 

Positive Incentives:

 

Alternative Work Schedules

Bike/Transit Integration

Carsharing

Commuter Financial Incentives

Guaranteed Ride Home

Improved Security

Location Efficient Mortgages

New Urbanism

Park & Ride

Pay-As-You-Drive Insurance

Pedestrian and Cycling Improvements

Ridesharing

School Trip Management

Shuttle Services

TDM Marketing

Telework

Transit Improvements

Transit Oriented Development

 

Mixed:

 

Access Management

Carfree Planning

Comprehensive Market Reforms

HOV Priority

Parking Management

Smart Growth

Street Reclaiming

Traffic Calming

 

Negative Incentives:

 

Fuel Tax Increases

Parking Pricing

Road Pricing

Vehicle Use Restrictions

 

TDM Is An Unjustified Intervention In Free Markets

Some critics argue that TDM is an unjustified intervention in free markets. This assumes that the current transportation market is optimal, and so any change must reduce market freedom. But there are significant distortions in current transportation and land use markets that favor automobile travel (Market Principles). Many TDM strategies correct these market distortions directly, or represent “second best” solutions to offset such distortions. Market Reforms, Institutional Reforms, Regulatory Reforms, Efficient Pricing, Parking Management are examples of TDM strategies that are intended to correct market distortions and help create more open and competitive markets.

 

 

There's more at:

 

http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm49.htm

Oy...

 

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=34703

 

Group blows whistle on high-speed rail plan

July 10, 2009

 

(AP) — A Chicago-based conservative group is blasting plans to spend federal stimulus money on high-speed rail in Illinois and elsewhere around the country.

 

...

Gotta love that hard-hitting reporting by the AP there.

 

1st paragraph: Group A disagrees with Group B.

2nd paragraph: Group A wants X.

3rd paragraph: Group B says X is a bad idea.

4th paragraph: Group B wants Y instead of X.

5th paragraph: Group A says why X is a good idea.

 

And newspapers wonder why nobody takes them seriously anymore.

It's incredible to think that money changed hands on some level (no idea how the news business works in this regard) for the opportunity to report the article as news.

 

Regarding the article replies on Crains:

I hate the America isn't dense enough argument.  Sure we have sprawlburbia but it seems that we've been brainwashed into thinking on a national scale instead of regionally.

Crain's Chicago Business pays the Associated Press tons of money so they can re-print articles like that. I hope Crain's saved their receipt.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what these "tank thinkers" count on: that the mainstream won't catch on that they keep recyclng the same faulty math and broad-brush criticisms. 

Especially in the rural and small-town Midwest, there's a pervasive cynicism that provides fertile ground for naysayers on every issue.

 

Folks don't trust the government, and think that politicians are out to tax away all the fruits of their work and give the money to rich urban idlers, they don't trust big business because it'll cheat them with bad products and services and fixed prices, and they blame unions for the decline of US industry and loss of jobs.

 

They form their opinions and political persuasions on the basis of self-reinforcing rumors and rants that circulate and then recirculate. I've often been within earshot of the passel of knuckleheads who gather for coffee at my small hometown's Hardees, reinforcing each other's ignorance with lies and exaggerations.

 

Get a local boy who has memorized the discourse and who is astute enough to promise low taxes, good roads, cheap gas, a strong national defense, and freedom from government regulation, and he'll go far. Combine some rural representatives and senators with power-and-fame-seeking infotainers, and you get a borderline-cult following. Think Tea Parties on courthouse squares all over the Midwest.

 

A lot of those folks, especially farmers, don't condone using tax dollars to build a passenger rail network for the comfort and convenience of what they think is an upscale market. Often they can't get beyond the passenger-train opposition to realize that the expansion and improvement of rail systems will bring them more economical movement of supplies and products and improve their profitability.

^

Are you sure you don't live in Dayton?  Because what you describe is exactley the mentality here.

 

Gabriel Roth is either misinformed or a liar:

 

Moreover, public transportation (passenger rail services, subways, buses, light rail) requires heavy subsidies, while roads mostly pay for themselves through fuel taxes. Our roads would be even more self-sustaining if 20% of the federal fuel tax were not already diverted to public transit from the federal Highway Trust Fund. Messrs. Rockefeller, Lautenberg and Oberstar want to grab even more money from the trust fund.

 

The 2.8 cents of the 18.4 cents/gallon fuel tax is 15.5% not 20%. And it isn't diverted; the Mass Transit Account is part of the Federal Highway Trust Fund and it was established for the purposes of funding alternative modes of transport which would reduce congestion and wear and tear on roadways. In fact, the Bush Administration proposed borrowing from the Mass Transit Account to cover deficits in highway funding.

 

Not only that, in terms of passenger miles per year the growth in public transportation has outstripped the growth in vehicle miles traveled for the last 12 years, according to the American Public Transportation Association. Yet 80 % of public transportation funding by the Federal Government comes from only 15% of the Highway Trust Fund which is shrinking because fewer people are travelling by car.

 

And this is a reason to increase funding for highways? what nonsense!

 

Even way back in the day.... rail-based passenger transportation had to fight the good fight.  Sadly, the argument didn't help the interurban system in Ohio...but perhaps the tables have turned?

 

http://www.columbusrailroads.com/pom-aug2009.htm

High-Speed Boondogle

Why Obama's bet on rails is an expensive mistake

Robert J. Samuelson

Robert Samuelson is wrong about everything. News at 11.

True. He has never met a rail project he liked in 25 years of written rants, so I never take him seriously. The short answer to his rant:

 

Minor funding produces minor benefits, so you get what you pay for.

 

In Ohio, we'll spend 0.02 percent of the state's $3.5 billion transportation budget this year on buses and trains. The federal government has spent less than 1 percent of the national transportation budget on Amtrak since 1971 -- 1 percent is exactly Amtrak's market share.

 

We've gotten what we pay for... A little tidbit Samuelson routinely overlooks. I wonder who he blew to pass his economics classes.

Drivel to be sure, but drivel that appears in a national news magazine.

 

If you register to comment on Newsweek magazine's website to comment on the story..

 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/213347

 

What irks me is that none of what Samuelson writes is either new or correct. In the very same issue, there is an opinion piece by Michael Steele the RNC Chairman which trots out the same old well-worn (and discredited) "facts" about health care reform.

 

It used to be that journalism consisted of more than letting people regurgitate the same old myths for the purpose of inflaming the sentiments of people who don't care to educate themselves as to the facts.

 

He's been writing for Newsweek for 25 years+ during which time some conservatives have lobbed their zombie-like, fact-free attacks at Amtrak in numerous attempts to kill it. But the public continues to tell Congress they want trains. In fact, during the Reagan-Stockman assaults against Amtrak in the 1980s (aided and abetted by Samuelson), Congress got more mail and phone calls from constituents wanting them to save Amtrak than on any other proposed budget cut except for veterans benefits.

 

Ideology, not representation of the public's wishes, is what pushes the right-wing zombies on this issue.

 

In the very same issue, there is an opinion piece by Michael Steele the RNC Chairman which trots out the same old well-worn (and discredited) "facts" about health care reform.

 

 

Discredited by those who are for reform.  Doesn't make them or you any more right or wrong.

Short and sweet....

 

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/dense-about-density/

 

The Conscience of a Liberal

Paul Krugman

 

August 24, 2009, 12:13 pm

Dense about density

 

Right now, I’m on New Jersey Transit, near Rahway. Around me is a post-apocalyptic wasteland dense development as far as the eye can see. And not a buffalo in sight.

 

And you know what? A large fraction of the American population lives in places like this. Yes, America overall has low density, but many of us live in high-density corridors; very few of us live in the wide open spaces. That’s why arguments that, say, we can’t have high-speed rail, because America’s population density is so low, are profoundly stupid. Which does not, of course, <a href=http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=08&year=2009&base_name=robert_samuelson_doesnt_like_t#116357>stop them from being made</a>.

A counterpoint to Mr. Samuelson's column:

 

 

Dean Baker's commentary on economic reporting

 

Robert Samuelson Doesn't Like Trains

 

That seems the unifying theme from his column today, since his arguments against high speed rail do not make a lot of sense. Samuelson tries to tell us that trains might be useful in Japan and Europe, but they won't work in the United States.

 

...

 

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=08&year=2009&base_name=robert_samuelson_doesnt_like_t#116357

In fairness, Krugman and Baker may be being overly rational there.  Congressional pork-barrel politics force Amtrak to do things that no sane private enterprise would, e.g., <a href="http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.aspx?Feed=AP&Date=20090814&ID=10275435&Symbol=CSX">delay further progress in Ohio in order to do a "study" of a possible route between Billings, MT and Missoula, MT</a>.  (Any guesses as to what Senators hold serious power in the committees responsible for Amtrak funding?)  For completeness' sake, Billings has a population of 103,000 and Missoula 57,000.  They're more than 300 miles apart.  It's 250 miles from Cleveland to Cincinnati, passing through Columbus and not far from Dayton.  There are "small towns" along that route with higher populations than Missoula.  They're rounding errors in Ohio.

Ironically, the existing train service through Montana, the Empire Builder, carries more than 500,000 people year -- that's more than the combined annual enplanements on Southwest, Continental, United and American between Cleveland and Chicago (that's dozens of flights per day). Granted, the Empire Builder travels from Chicago to Seattle and Portland. But it also serves trips from Stanley, ND to Browning, MT, or from Fargo, ND to Havre, MT, or from Minneapolis, MN to Spokane, WA, or...

 

And that's why this train carries so many people across Montana -- it isn't a single-purpose train. Indeed, if you ask the 500 people on board the train why they're riding that day, you might get 500 different answers. The train is also a link to the outside world and a lifeline to many communities which couldn't support an airport or more than a two-lane road -- each of which get shut in during the winter. It's why Amtrak ships medicines and other emergency supplies to isolated towns on this route.

 

Billings and Missoula see the benefits their northern neighbors get from having Amtrak and they want it too -- but as part of a larger route linking Chicago to the Pacific Northwest and dozens of towns in between.

Actrually, if we had applied Samuelson's "logic" to all major infarstructure projects... we'd be walking on Indian trails, pooping in the woods, communicating by smoke signals or "text-messaging" on horseback, moving freight by flat-bottom boat and providing mass transit via Conestoga Wagon.

Then we wouldn't have to worry about Global Warming or Peak Oil.

Then we wouldn't have to worry about Global Warming or Peak Oil.

 

I know, and to top it all off, all those peak oil threads would be infinitely more fun if we were talking about the Peak Wood Crisis.

Then we wouldn't have to worry about Global Warming or Peak Oil.

 

I know, and to top it all off, all those peak oil threads would be infinitely more fun if we were talking about the Peak Wood Crisis.

 

LMAO

 

Whatevs.  Tell him to go sell his crazy someplace else.  We have excess inventory here!