Obama to unveil HSR plan Thursday

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The Interstate Highways are an un-needed, dehumanizing social and economic drain on our country. I suggest we bulldoze, detonate, and otherwise remove these poorly conceived monstrosities from the era where accomplishment and progress were considered one and the same. People driving from place to place can do so on back roads. There is no need for a car to be a quick method of transportation.
If there is volume to warrant the presence of a highway, there is volume to warrant replacing that highway with more economical rail transport. If there isn't volume for rail, there isn't volume to justify the presence of the highway in the first place. Either way, it should be demolished.

We have spent the past hundred years investing in the fallacy of sustained personal mobility. It will take us twice that long to correct this mistake. Its not like this was even what people wanted in the first place. Do any of you remember National City Lines, where rubber tire manufacturers and automakers got together and bought up city transit so they could replace steel-wheeled trollies with rubber-tired busses?

Eisenhower got his inspiration from a certain Austrian named Adolf's grand plan for moving people and things through Germany during the war. Indeed, the highways were marketed as a defense spending measure! The highway as we know it is the work of the ****s. It should be destroyed.
So in your world, we should not travel except by train if there is enough of a base to travel that way? So that means I could not go to see family in California because I cannot afford the train trip. We would have to take 2-3 trains one way. And in the future, there would be no guarantee that a more direct route will be available. We would have to have at least a roomette on each train. My only brother passed away April 9th, from pancreatic cancer. I've been scrambling to fly down to see my 83 yr old mom. She's all alone now, he was living with her. I have some cuz nearby, but I know she needs me there too. You are saying I shouldn't go. Can't drive the car, it wouldn't make it. Have to fly, but really don't want to.

There are many others I'm sure that would disagree with you. We don't really drive all that much, but we do take occasional trips requiring the highways. Besides, if we all took backroads, wouldn't this cause more waste of fuel/pollution?

Please understand that I'm not trying to be difficult or start an argument.
 
Which side are you arguing? Let's not use taxation, or let's use taxation? And need I point out that a fuel tax and a GPS-tax are both mileage-based? There ain't much daylight between them!
The problem is, there's more and more daylight between the two, and the daylight is not in line with what we've been discussing.

Does a super efficient car, which would pay less in taxes, really put that much less wear or require that much less expansion of the highway system than a similar car with average efficiency? Note that I'm not comparing a Prius against an SUV here, but, say, a Prius against an average sedan.

We were talking about helping the driver to realize his costs in terms of wear and tear--costs that are often overlooked; does a high tech hybrid with so many complex systems have that much less wear and tear than a study V6? And again, does the driver's taxes somehow cover the cost of the wear and tear when it's time to pay up?

The differences between fuel-based and mileage based are pretty significant. Mileage-based taxation helps show the true costs of driving, so long as it's actually channeled into maintenance of the infrastructure needed for driving and not diverted to other pet projects, be they trains or additional congressional pages.
 
The Interstate Highways are an un-needed, dehumanizing social and economic drain on our country. I suggest we bulldoze, detonate, and otherwise remove these poorly conceived monstrosities from the era where accomplishment and progress were considered one and the same. People driving from place to place can do so on back roads. There is no need for a car to be a quick method of transportation.
If there is volume to warrant the presence of a highway, there is volume to warrant replacing that highway with more economical rail transport. If there isn't volume for rail, there isn't volume to justify the presence of the highway in the first place. Either way, it should be demolished.

We have spent the past hundred years investing in the fallacy of sustained personal mobility. It will take us twice that long to correct this mistake. Its not like this was even what people wanted in the first place. Do any of you remember National City Lines, where rubber tire manufacturers and automakers got together and bought up city transit so they could replace steel-wheeled trollies with rubber-tired busses?

Eisenhower got his inspiration from a certain Austrian named Adolf's grand plan for moving people and things through Germany during the war. Indeed, the highways were marketed as a defense spending measure! The highway as we know it is the work of the ****s. It should be destroyed.
One important client of interstate highways is shippers. Sure there are many truckloads on the highways that ought to be on rail. However, there are a huge number of loads that get split up as they cross the country.

You want to decimate a town? Just say that their single factory can only ship once it gets an entire truckload unloading in one place, instead of the current practice of putting together a load that will partially unload at several (or numerous) spots.

You want to eliminate just-in-time processes? Most of these shipper/consignee partners want a single carrier who will guarantee a delivery date and time, and take responsibility for the load from factory to destination. Rails are no good at this. Take the recent problems in ND. A truck can detour around the problem while trains are delayed.

Taxation for roads is an interesting problem. Heavy trucks do the most damage to the roads, so there are good philosophical arguments that trucks should pay more fuel and mileage taxes than they do (thus raising product prices). There are also good arguments that cheap shipping benefits everyone, so fuel and mileage taxes on trucks should be reduced or eliminated. The current system collects part of the cost to maintain roads from trucks, part from car users (gas tax), and part from the public (general fund/income tax). What is the best balance between these funding sources? Philosophically? I don't know. Practically? I want someone else to pay, so I want more of the balance to be in something I don't do much of.

When is it philosophically sound to promote behavioral changes through taxes? Right now, we try to encourage home ownership through the tax code, and it worked. But then, here in California, people said this discriminated against renters, so we have a small renter's tax credit, reducing the effect of those tax and interest deductions. California also raised the tax on tobacco products to promote child health. Makes sense, kind of, except now those programs are out of money on account of reduced smoking. Tribal stores also saw increased sales after the last tax hike, and will probably see even more for our most recent tax boost. I believe the same is going to happen if you try to use taxes to reduce people's driving. If you want to tax driving to raise money, then do it honestly: say you want more money, and here is how individuals and/or society will benefit from those funds, choose more than one way to accumulate the funds, and then make sure the public sees the promised effects.

What is a "good" tax, anyway? Probably it ought to be "fair" (whatever that means, but graduated income taxes and user taxes are usually looked at as good at this), easy/cheap to collect (like charitable organizations, you don't want to spend a high percentage of your take in collection expenses), and difficult to cheat (a major problem with income taxes, and benefit of real property taxes). So we use a combination of lots of taxing mechanisms to muddle through this issue, and I think that is probably a good idea.

One more point for GML: I often use back roads. From LA to Oroville is around 8 hours on the interstate (at least the part where the interstate runs), or 1.5-2 days taking "blue highways" (the blue lines on a map), depending on traffic. I probably use about twice as much gas on the slower routes. Is that what you want? Do you also want all those trucks running through town, increasing tragic interactions with pedestrians, bicycles, and buildings? (I didn't list cars, since you want to eliminate them).
 
The problem is, there's more and more daylight between the two, and the daylight is not in line with what we've been discussing.
Does a super efficient car, which would pay less in taxes, really put that much less wear or require that much less expansion of the highway system than a similar car with average efficiency? Note that I'm not comparing a Prius against an SUV here, but, say, a Prius against an average sedan.

We were talking about helping the driver to realize his costs in terms of wear and tear--costs that are often overlooked; does a high tech hybrid with so many complex systems have that much less wear and tear than a study V6? And again, does the driver's taxes somehow cover the cost of the wear and tear when it's time to pay up?

The differences between fuel-based and mileage based are pretty significant. Mileage-based taxation helps show the true costs of driving, so long as it's actually channeled into maintenance of the infrastructure needed for driving and not diverted to other pet projects, be they trains or additional congressional pages.
You're right that as cars move to higher mileages or alternative fuels that a gallon tax makes less and less sense (and cents), but up to now it's been a rough approximation of a mileage tax. I'm was simply arguing that you didn't want to use a tax system, but then suggested a tax as an alternative.

The costs of driving are far beyond normal maintenance: there are all the societal costs that are externalized, and those need to be recouped somehow if drivers are to know the true cost of that next mile, and so make a more rational decision about what mode of transport to use. See, for example, "The High Cost of Free Parking" by Donald Shoup, or "Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream " by Andres Duany, or "The Elephant in the Bedroom: Automobile Dependence & Denial : Impacts on the Economy and Environment" by Hart and Spivak, or "Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back" by Jane Holtz Key. (Why are authors so infatuated with the colon?)

The car will always be with us, and that's not a bad thing. However, so long as its costs remain hidden and externalized, it will always appear to be the cheapest mode, and so it will always be over-consumed.
 
Aside from the fact this "sackcloth and ashes" approach to the funding requirements is completely unnecessary, given the chump change costs required for a robust system, have you all considered that funding HSR in this way will lead to the proliferation of stations, slowing down the systems considerably? Drivers forced to pay for the HSR will rightly assume that the system is meant to be a glorified commuter rail. Having paid for the system, each little 'burb will want its own station.

The people in Rochester Minnesota seem to be pretty convinced that they will be able to travel 80 miles to Minneapolis for $8-9 when their system is built.
 
The Interstate Highways are an un-needed, dehumanizing social and economic drain on our country. I suggest we bulldoze, detonate, and otherwise remove these poorly conceived monstrosities from the era where accomplishment and progress were considered one and the same. People driving from place to place can do so on back roads. There is no need for a car to be a quick method of transportation.
If there is volume to warrant the presence of a highway, there is volume to warrant replacing that highway with more economical rail transport. If there isn't volume for rail, there isn't volume to justify the presence of the highway in the first place. Either way, it should be demolished.

We have spent the past hundred years investing in the fallacy of sustained personal mobility. It will take us twice that long to correct this mistake. Its not like this was even what people wanted in the first place. Do any of you remember National City Lines, where rubber tire manufacturers and automakers got together and bought up city transit so they could replace steel-wheeled trollies with rubber-tired busses?

Eisenhower got his inspiration from a certain Austrian named Adolf's grand plan for moving people and things through Germany during the war. Indeed, the highways were marketed as a defense spending measure! The highway as we know it is the work of the ****s. It should be destroyed.
Alice addressed the points I thought about as I read your post much better than I'm in a frame of mind to now, so I'll simply say ditto to her post.

I did want to point out one thing, though: if good rail completely obliterates the need for good road transport, then why does the rail mecca of Europe also have such an extensive and intricate network of highways that are, in some ways, more extensive and better than our interstate system?
 
We need all modes of transportation for this country to be successful. Our interstate highway system is world class, and in cases where I can't take the train because of logistics, I am grateful for the efforts put into building them. They are falling apart do to heavy use and lack of repair. Historically, there has been an unbalance in funding that favored the roads, and now the country has to play catch up. High speed trains in corridors east of the Mississippi river, and along the route planned in CAlifornia, will significantly decrease traffic in areas where the worse congestion is. Californian's, a car happy lot, crowd their trains that don't even reach top speeds of 79 mph in areas do to terrain. If you build it, they will ride it, if it is connecting the right cities.
 
As for there being no need for a car being a quick method of transportation, I think that police, firefighters, EMT's, ambulance drivers, etc, might beg to differ, as would the people whose lives and property they saved.

As it happens, there are no interstates within 50 miles of where I live, but the area where the nearest one is is a rural area. And spread out. You might have to respond to an accident, fire, or medical emergency 30 miles away. I guarantee that lives would be lost and property destroyed if emergency vehicles had to drive on back roads to get to the emergency rather than the interstate.
 
One important client of interstate highways is shippers. Sure there are many truckloads on the highways that ought to be on rail. However, there are a huge number of loads that get split up as they cross the country.
You want to decimate a town? Just say that their single factory can only ship once it gets an entire truckload unloading in one place, instead of the current practice of putting together a load that will partially unload at several (or numerous) spots.
Maybe we need better infrastructure for moving roughly airliner sized shipping containers between rail and truck.

You want to eliminate just-in-time processes? Most of these shipper/consignee partners want a single carrier who will guarantee a delivery date and time, and take responsibility for the load from factory to destination. Rails are no good at this. Take the recent problems in ND. A truck can detour around the problem while trains are delayed.
I think this may be more about the current approaches taken by the freight railroads than about what is possible with rail.

220 MPH freight has the potential to actually expand just in time processes. Somewhere there was discussion of how much it costs to buy a new automobile, vs buy a kit of parts for auto parts dealers to end up with a complete automobile. I think a lot of the cost with the latter comes from the amount of warehousing that happens with auto parts because we don't have the ability to just ship any part from Kansas City overnight to anywhere in the country at an affordable price. Cut the cost of overnight shipping of heavy parts that can't be economically moved that fast with Jet-A, and suddenly we might have less capital tied up in warehoused auto parts.

Taxation for roads is an interesting problem. Heavy trucks do the most damage to the roads, so there are good philosophical arguments that trucks should pay more fuel and mileage taxes than they do (thus raising product prices). There are also good arguments that cheap shipping benefits everyone, so fuel and mileage taxes on trucks should be reduced or eliminated. The current system collects part of the cost to maintain roads from trucks, part from car users (gas tax), and part from the public (general fund/income tax). What is the best balance between these funding sources? Philosophically? I don't know. Practically? I want someone else to pay, so I want more of the balance to be in something I don't do much of.
If we would eliminate property taxes for railroad property and raise the taxes on cargo carried by road, we'd probably see a mode shift which might not result in increased prices for consumers. It might even decrease prices for consumers in the long run.
 
If we would eliminate property taxes for railroad property and raise the taxes on cargo carried by road, we'd probably see a mode shift which might not result in increased prices for consumers. It might even decrease prices for consumers in the long run.

Railroads are already very favorably treated under something called the 4R Act. Basically, if they don't like their property tax bill, they get to take their issue before a Federalist Society federal judge who acts as a state board of equalization to readjust the assessment. Unlike other federal issues, its a real nitty-gritty reexamination of the tax bill, not just a meta-view as to whether the locals followed standards.

The intermediate fast rail projects are going to be a very considerable subsidy to the railroads. they will have their tracks upgraded to 110 mph at government expense, and my expectation is that the railroads will prevail in having their own gandy dancers make the improvements, too, at a considerable mark up to Uncle Sam. Of course they will have to promise priority to passenger rail, but we all know that maybe they observe that, and maybe they won't.
 
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Railroads are already very favorably treated under something called the 4R Act. Basically, if they don't like their property tax bill, they get to take their issue before a Federalist Society federal judge who acts as a state board of equalization to readjust the assessment. Unlike other federal issues, its a real nitty-gritty reexamination of the tax bill, not just a meta-view as to whether the locals followed standards.
But does that result in property tax bills that are truly competitive with the property tax bills the trucking companies don't pay for the highways?

The intermediate fast rail projects are going to be a very considerable subsidy to the railroads. they will have their tracks upgraded to 110 mph at government expense, and my expectation is that the railroads will prevail in having their own gandy dancers make the improvements, too, at a considerable mark up to Uncle Sam. Of course they will have to promise priority to passenger rail, but we all know that maybe they observe that, and maybe they won't.
I think we've also seen Pan Am asking for improvements to some tracks in New Hampshire, in preparation for the possibility that we might someday see commuter rail there (with faster speeds than that track currently supports, but probably slower than 110 MPH; I believe the existing MBTA Commuter Rail equipment is limited to 88 MPH, and I'm not sure they even expect to hit 88 MPH there). I've not seen any evidence that Pan Am is terribly concerned about making sure that any actual passenger stations are completed at approximately the same time the track work is.
 
...have you all considered that funding HSR in this way will lead to the proliferation of stations, slowing down the systems considerably? Drivers forced to pay for the HSR will rightly assume that the system is meant to be a glorified commuter rail. Having paid for the system, each little 'burb will want its own station.
What's wrong with a lot of stations? If all trains stop at all stations, then yes it would be bad. But if there's a proliferation of stations because of demand, we'll safely assume there'll be a proliferation of train runs. And some will be express and some will have stop at most of the stations. That's a good thing. It'll serve more people and garner more support for trains. Don't worry, there'll always be demand for express trains even on lines with a lot of stations.
 
What's wrong with a lot of stations? If all trains stop at all stations, then yes it would be bad. But if there's a proliferation of stations because of demand, we'll safely assume there'll be a proliferation of train runs. And some will be express and some will have stop at most of the stations. That's a good thing. It'll serve more people and garner more support for trains. Don't worry, there'll always be demand for express trains even on lines with a lot of stations.
The concern I see is whether there's enough track capacity for all the different stopping patterns people want at the frequencies they want. But in the worst case, that just means we have to build more track, and if we end up with that being a serious problem, there will probably be lots of political support for adding more tracks.
 
So in your world, we should not travel except by train if there is enough of a base to travel that way? So that means I could not go to see family in California because I cannot afford the train trip. We would have to take 2-3 trains one way. And in the future, there would be no guarantee that a more direct route will be available. We would have to have at least a roomette on each train. My only brother passed away April 9th, from pancreatic cancer. I've been scrambling to fly down to see my 83 yr old mom. She's all alone now, he was living with her. I have some cuz nearby, but I know she needs me there too. You are saying I shouldn't go. Can't drive the car, it wouldn't make it. Have to fly, but really don't want to.There are many others I'm sure that would disagree with you. We don't really drive all that much, but we do take occasional trips requiring the highways. Besides, if we all took backroads, wouldn't this cause more waste of fuel/pollution?

Please understand that I'm not trying to be difficult or start an argument.
You aren't thinking in scale, SunChaser. I want you to add up all the costs you incur from your car. There are a lot of them, keep in mind. Depreciation; fuel; insurance; parking; maintenance; road tax; taxation costs- Federal, state, AND municipal; and cleaning it, if you do that. Now, add them all up. I think the average person spends an easy $25k a year on that crap, on a per-car basis.

Now imagine all those expenses going away. Do you not think you could afford to travel by train after all that stuff goes away? I'm not talking about simply bulldozing our highways and replacing them with rail, man. I'm talking about re-engineering the way our society moves around what works rather than what we want.

New transit. New mechanisms. A new community. A new world, dude. A place where people don't feel the need to be locked up in their own car trying to drive whenever moving. We have turned into a society of isolated self-serving a$$holes. We must un-do what the car has done.

One important client of interstate highways is shippers. Sure there are many truckloads on the highways that ought to be on rail. However, there are a huge number of loads that get split up as they cross the country.
You want to decimate a town? Just say that their single factory can only ship once it gets an entire truckload unloading in one place, instead of the current practice of putting together a load that will partially unload at several (or numerous) spots.

You want to eliminate just-in-time processes? Most of these shipper/consignee partners want a single carrier who will guarantee a delivery date and time, and take responsibility for the load from factory to destination. Rails are no good at this. Take the recent problems in ND. A truck can detour around the problem while trains are delayed.
YES. I want to eliminate JIT. I want to eliminate un-needed mass production. I want to eliminate excessive production efficiency. I want money to be spent doing things right for a change. I want things to be built properly and in small numbers, to last a long time. I want the prices of goods to go up and the purchasing of them to go down.

We ruined our economy with over-efficiency and buying things un-needed and disposable. It is time for all this nonsense to be recognized for what it is. Wal-Mart, un-needed personal transportation, and the mess they created are now anachronistic pariahs in this world.

One more point for GML: I often use back roads. From LA to Oroville is around 8 hours on the interstate (at least the part where the interstate runs), or 1.5-2 days taking "blue highways" (the blue lines on a map), depending on traffic. I probably use about twice as much gas on the slower routes. Is that what you want? Do you also want all those trucks running through town, increasing tragic interactions with pedestrians, bicycles, and buildings? (I didn't list cars, since you want to eliminate them).
I fail to see the need for massive amounts of truck service. We served our factories adequately with rail before. We can do it again. Gas usage isn't important to me. A large intention of my mindset is to reduce overall travel. Some of those car and truck trips will be removed, never to be replaced.

I do not believe that commerce on an international scale has helped. I question whether commerce on a national level is even beneficial. Except, perhaps, allowing people to buy junk they don't need with money they don't really need to have. The number of injection-molded plastic chatchkas in my sisters apartment bears testament to the concept. Our society needs a solid overhaul, and I say it should start at the biggest mistake of all- excessive personal mobility.

I did want to point out one thing, though: if good rail completely obliterates the need for good road transport, then why does the rail mecca of Europe also have such an extensive and intricate network of highways that are, in some ways, more extensive and better than our interstate system?
Who said it is the rail mecca? If any place is the mecca of rail, it is New York City. Of the great cities of the west, it has the lowest automobile ownership. Coincidence? Of course not. New York hasn't built a new highway in decades. Most of its system is crumbling and under-maintained. Its illogical, poorly planned, and honestly I think the BQE should be the starting point of road demolition. Followed in short order by the Belt and LIE. Last person who seriously lobbied for an expressway on Manhattan Island kinda lost his job- his name was Robert Moses, by the way.

As for there being no need for a car being a quick method of transportation, I think that police, firefighters, EMT's, ambulance drivers, etc, might beg to differ, as would the people whose lives and property they saved.As it happens, there are no interstates within 50 miles of where I live, but the area where the nearest one is is a rural area. And spread out. You might have to respond to an accident, fire, or medical emergency 30 miles away. I guarantee that lives would be lost and property destroyed if emergency vehicles had to drive on back roads to get to the emergency rather than the interstate.
Ya know, the car has only been around for a hundred-odd years. We seemed to survive as a race without emergency vehicles traipsing about multi-lane expressways. I betcha we could continue to survive if they ceased to do so.
 
Our society needs a solid overhaul, and I say it should start at the biggest mistake of all- excessive personal mobility.
Very true. People going to Chicago just to eat Pizza is a waste of resources and should be banned. How do those pizza ingredients get to the kitchen? Train? Horse and cart? Someone who claims to go somewhere to eat a pizza just because its 'better' than the pizza you could eat down your street is obviously suffering from excessive personal mobility, or a hypocrite.
 
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If any place is the mecca of rail, it is New York City. Of the great cities of the west, it has the lowest automobile ownership. Coincidence? Of course not.
New York has more rail service than most places in the US, but a "mecca"? Hardly. A crummy subway, falling to bits, a few commuter railways and minimal Amtrak service? Its just about satisfactory, that's it.

Car ownership is always lower in densely populated cities, more poor people, more congested roads and a reasonable amount of public transport make it so.

Poor old GML does seem so unhappy living in the modern world, selling his precious cars and moving over to North Korea might be more use to him!
 
Ya know, the car has only been around for a hundred-odd years. We seemed to survive as a race without emergency vehicles traipsing about multi-lane expressways. I betcha we could continue to survive if they ceased to do so.
Just wait till your house is on fire then, luddite child! Crying like a baby wanting the firefighters to get there quicker! :rolleyes:
 
I did want to point out one thing, though: if good rail completely obliterates the need for good road transport, then why does the rail mecca of Europe also have such an extensive and intricate network of highways that are, in some ways, more extensive and better than our interstate system?
Who said it is the rail mecca? If any place is the mecca of rail, it is New York City. Of the great cities of the west, it has the lowest automobile ownership. Coincidence? Of course not. New York hasn't built a new highway in decades. Most of its system is crumbling and under-maintained. Its illogical, poorly planned, and honestly I think the BQE should be the starting point of road demolition. Followed in short order by the Belt and LIE. Last person who seriously lobbied for an expressway on Manhattan Island kinda lost his job- his name was Robert Moses, by the way.
I was speaking on a large-scale basis. Perhaps NYC's car ownership ratio is the lowest of the great cities of the West, but I would be willing to bet it's not that much higher in many of the other great cities of the West. I've done London, Paris, and Rome car-free and have had no trouble. The difference is that if you want to go out of NYC itself, there's a good chance you need a car. Many NYers rent cars to go Upstate to visit family or otherwise get out of the city. In Europe, a Londoner wanting to holiday in Bath, visit Shakespeare's house in Stratford-upon-Avon, or relive history at Hastings' battle site, or a Parisian who wants to see the beautiful cathedral at Reims or go wine tasting in the small village of Beaune, can get there by train.

A New Yorker can't get to the important college town of Ithaca or the comparatively large cities of Binghamton or Scranton, PA (both of whose metro populations greatly exceed all of the European cities I listed).

Between a fairly extensive blanket of rail coverage and connecting buses for the tiny dorfs that it would be unreasonable to expect rail to serve (should a train really be built to connect my friend's house in the 9,800-person town of Stephanskirchen?), it is much easier to live a car-free life than even in New York, since not only do you not need a car in the city, you don't need one to go outside of the city. Yet Germany's Autobahnen are some of the biggest and most technologically advanced roads in the world, and France's autoroutes and England's motorways are not only nicer than many Interstates in the U.S. but also busier.

And this is with Europe's smaller, less-comfortable cars, higher gas prices, and much greater availability of both long-distance and local public transit. This in and of itself should show you that expecting the world to give up wholesale the very notion of road transport is ludicrous. Why are all of these countries expanding their road networks even as their rail networks are continuing to expand? If it can't be done in Europe, with its shorter transportation distances and denser populations, I doubt very much it can be done here, no matter how much money we throw at it. It's much more reasonable to aim rail towards reducing aviation congestion and providing alternatives for local high-density transportation, but you can never eliminate the need for good road transport in today's economy. (And if you want to revert to a previous economy, well, good luck getting people to give up, despite its downfalls, the highest standard of living the world has ever enjoyed.)
 
So in your world, we should not travel except by train if there is enough of a base to travel that way? So that means I could not go to see family in California because I cannot afford the train trip. We would have to take 2-3 trains one way. And in the future, there would be no guarantee that a more direct route will be available. We would have to have at least a roomette on each train. My only brother passed away April 9th, from pancreatic cancer. I've been scrambling to fly down to see my 83 yr old mom. She's all alone now, he was living with her. I have some cuz nearby, but I know she needs me there too. You are saying I shouldn't go. Can't drive the car, it wouldn't make it. Have to fly, but really don't want to.There are many others I'm sure that would disagree with you. We don't really drive all that much, but we do take occasional trips requiring the highways. Besides, if we all took backroads, wouldn't this cause more waste of fuel/pollution?

Please understand that I'm not trying to be difficult or start an argument.
You aren't thinking in scale, SunChaser. I want you to add up all the costs you incur from your car. There are a lot of them, keep in mind. Depreciation; fuel; insurance; parking; maintenance; road tax; taxation costs- Federal, state, AND municipal; and cleaning it, if you do that. Now, add them all up. I think the average person spends an easy $25k a year on that crap, on a per-car basis.

Now imagine all those expenses going away. Do you not think you could afford to travel by train after all that stuff goes away? I'm not talking about simply bulldozing our highways and replacing them with rail, man. I'm talking about re-engineering the way our society moves around what works rather than what we want.

New transit. New mechanisms. A new community. A new world, dude. A place where people don't feel the need to be locked up in their own car trying to drive whenever moving. We have turned into a society of isolated self-serving a$$holes. We must un-do what the car has done.


GML,

I am thinking in scale. The costs of driving our older vehicle are minimal, at best. We bought it used for under 1K. We drive it 3-4 times a week, maybe 30 miles total. We don't pay for parking, & not driving to work. So hubby & I are way below average on the money spent for car stuff. We would not be able to maintain a car by spending 25K a year. At this point, it needs major work. We will probably get another used car for under 1K, and fix this one up as a second or sell/give away.

I know you are talking new transit. For many years, when our kids were growing up, there were times when we did not have a functional car. We walked, took the bus, or caught rides sometimes. And yes we took the bus for work & buying groceries. But there are times you cannot use a bus. I have several pets, including a Macaw. When he needs to go get his nails trimmed every 3 months, I cannot take him by bus. A Cab would be way too much. It's way too far too walk (about 20 miles). So we use our van. All these years taking the bus hasn't changed much. When we got Trax here (light rail) it was supposed to make things faster & better. But where we lived at the time, it slowed our commute & added the rail into it. It went from 40 min to 60 each way. And it only runs north to south, very little east-west as with the buses.

Saturday we went & picked up the luggage we ordered for the train trip. I had it shipped to the store to save on delivery charges & of course gas. We also did our shopping that we do every two weeks.

Remember not everyone has the ability to select all modes of transport. When you get outside of SLC, it is pretty rural.

Usually we try to take 2 camping trips each summer. The campsites are about a 2 hour drive from here. There is no other way to get there. This year we will miss the first one because of our train trip. Don't know if we'll make it to #2.

And again I remind you, I must go to my brother's memorial & we have to fly (early may). Im ok with trying to conserve what we have, but I also realize that mass transit is not always the way to go. I read all the trip reports knowing we will not ever be able to ride most of those trains. We just don't have that kind of income. Not whining, just stating fact.

I know we are not the average family as far as travel & car usage. That is my point. To travel by train to So Cal, we would need to take the CZ, (18 hrs) the CS, & then another train, OR fly down & catch the TE. Too much $ & time at this point. There is no direct route from SLC anymore. (which I would take in a heartbeat)

Oh DUDE BTW- I'm definitely a woman, wife, mother & grandmother. :blink: Maybe I should change my nickname to something more girly? :unsure: Haven't posted a pic because I don't want to scare anyone!!!! :lol:

Edited for spelling.
 
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You aren't thinking in scale, SunChaser. I want you to add up all the costs you incur from your car. There are a lot of them, keep in mind. Depreciation; fuel; insurance; parking; maintenance; road tax; taxation costs- Federal, state, AND municipal; and cleaning it, if you do that. Now, add them all up. I think the average person spends an easy $25k a year on that crap, on a per-car basis.
GML,

I am thinking in scale. The costs of driving our older vehicle are minimal, at best. We bought it used for under 1K. We drive it 3-4 times a week, maybe 30 miles total. We don't pay for parking, & not driving to work. So hubby & I are way below average on the money spent for car stuff. We would not be able to maintain a car by spending 25K a year. At this point, it needs major work. We will probably get another used car for under 1K, and fix this one up as a second or sell/give away.
I'll agree with sunchaser that not everyone spends $25,000 per year on their car and associated costs. I think you (GML) are severely overestimating the cost of maintaining a vehicle.

As best I can calculate, I spend about $3,000 per year on my transportation. Here's my breakdown:

Gas: $1,500 per year (12 gallons of gas each week)

Insurance: $1,200 per year (and hopefully about to go down when I turn 25!)

Registration: $60 per year ($120 every two years)

IM: $40 per year ($80 every two years)

Miscellaneous repairs: ~$300 per year

University parking: $300 per year

Vehicle purchase: $400 per year (for the five years I've owned the car; it goes down the longer this car lasts me)

Even rounding up, I'm hard pressed to figure out how my car costs me more than $4,000 per year.

So, driving a 12-year-old car may put be below average, but even if someone buys a $30,000 car new and you factor in the monthly payment, you're still under $10,000. Maybe it would be $25,000 if you bought a BMW or Mercedes and lived in New York, but that's probably .01% of the nation's population--hardly the "average person."

Granted, even the $4,000 per year I spend on my car far exceeds the $600 an Anchorage PeopleMover bus pass would cost me for 12 months, but without the car, I'd bet you my annual income would be cut by a lot more than $3,400 per year since I'd need to find a new job that would allow me to ride the bus to and from work (I currently get off work after the bus system stops running) and still fits in my school schedule. Plus, I'd need to factor in that I'll be running a lot less efficiently since my 15-minute commute to work would turn into 2.5 hours (or whatever it was I calculated in the other thread), not to mention my options for doing things (shopping, classes at remote campuses, going out to eat, meeting up with friends, etc.) would be severely curtailed.

I'll keep my car, thankyouverymuch.
 
As best I can calculate, I spend about $3,000 per year on my transportation. Here's my breakdown:
Gas: $1,500 per year (12 gallons of gas each week)

Insurance: $1,200 per year (and hopefully about to go down when I turn 25!)

Registration: $60 per year ($120 every two years)

IM: $40 per year ($80 every two years)

Miscellaneous repairs: ~$300 per year

University parking: $300 per year

Vehicle purchase: $400 per year (for the five years I've owned the car; it goes down the longer this car lasts me)

Even rounding up, I'm hard pressed to figure out how my car costs me more than $4,000 per year.

So, driving a 12-year-old car may put be below average, but even if someone buys a $30,000 car new and you factor in the monthly payment, you're still under $10,000. Maybe it would be $25,000 if you bought a BMW or Mercedes and lived in New York, but that's probably .01% of the nation's population--hardly the "average person."

Granted, even the $4,000 per year I spend on my car far exceeds the $600 an Anchorage PeopleMover bus pass would cost me for 12 months, but without the car, I'd bet you my annual income would be cut by a lot more than $3,400 per year since I'd need to find a new job that would allow me to ride the bus to and from work (I currently get off work after the bus system stops running) and still fits in my school schedule. Plus, I'd need to factor in that I'll be running a lot less efficiently since my 15-minute commute to work would turn into 2.5 hours (or whatever it was I calculated in the other thread), not to mention my options for doing things (shopping, classes at remote campuses, going out to eat, meeting up with friends, etc.) would be severely curtailed.

I'll keep my car, thankyouverymuch.
You probably ought to consider the cost of externalities: transportation infrastructure, the pollution you car is responsible for when it is created, run, and junked, the cost of foreign adventures to guarantee supplies of fossil fuel. I wouldn't care to guess what these costs might be, but they are there.

In general, though, I haven't found attempts to legislature Virtue to be of much use. The results rarely match the goals.
 
If any place is the mecca of rail, it is New York City. Of the great cities of the west, it has the lowest automobile ownership. Coincidence? Of course not.
New York has more rail service than most places in the US, but a "mecca"? Hardly. A crummy subway, falling to bits, a few commuter railways and minimal Amtrak service? Its just about satisfactory, that's it.

Car ownership is always lower in densely populated cities, more poor people, more congested roads and a reasonable amount of public transport make it so.
While I'm not sure that I'd call NYC a mecca either, at least compared to other cities in the world, it definately is here in the US. And the subways aren't that crummy, in fact they've done quite a bit of work to them in the past few years. The average age of the fleet is probably down around 15 years right now, maybe even less. Many of the stations have now seen an overhaul, especially the major ones. The outlying ones probably are about half and half. So it's not quite falling to bits at this point in time and it still moves the equivilent of 3/4ths of this city's population each weekday.

As for those commuter RR's, there many only be three of them, but between them they take more than 700,000 people into and out of the city each weekday, and there are plenty more who board those trains to travel between intermediate points without ever setting foot in the city.

And you couldn't be more wrong about minimal Amtrak service. The only state with more Amtrak passengers than NY is California, NYP remains the busiest Amtrak station in the system more than double the number of passengers of the second busiest station, and while I haven't actually counted them I strongly suspect that NY sees just as many train movements as California or very close.

By the way, NYC doesn't rank in the top 10 US cities for most time lost commuting to work in one's car. And NYC, unlike most other major US cities, has no freeways that are wider than 3 lanes in each direction.
 
As best I can calculate, I spend about $3,000 per year on my transportation. Here's my breakdown:
Gas: $1,500 per year (12 gallons of gas each week)

Insurance: $1,200 per year (and hopefully about to go down when I turn 25!)

Registration: $60 per year ($120 every two years)

IM: $40 per year ($80 every two years)

Miscellaneous repairs: ~$300 per year

University parking: $300 per year

Vehicle purchase: $400 per year (for the five years I've owned the car; it goes down the longer this car lasts me)

Even rounding up, I'm hard pressed to figure out how my car costs me more than $4,000 per year.

So, driving a 12-year-old car may put be below average, but even if someone buys a $30,000 car new and you factor in the monthly payment, you're still under $10,000. Maybe it would be $25,000 if you bought a BMW or Mercedes and lived in New York, but that's probably .01% of the nation's population--hardly the "average person."

Granted, even the $4,000 per year I spend on my car far exceeds the $600 an Anchorage PeopleMover bus pass would cost me for 12 months, but without the car, I'd bet you my annual income would be cut by a lot more than $3,400 per year since I'd need to find a new job that would allow me to ride the bus to and from work (I currently get off work after the bus system stops running) and still fits in my school schedule. Plus, I'd need to factor in that I'll be running a lot less efficiently since my 15-minute commute to work would turn into 2.5 hours (or whatever it was I calculated in the other thread), not to mention my options for doing things (shopping, classes at remote campuses, going out to eat, meeting up with friends, etc.) would be severely curtailed.

I'll keep my car, thankyouverymuch.

You probably ought to consider the cost of externalities: transportation infrastructure, the pollution you car is responsible for when it is created, run, and junked, the cost of foreign adventures to guarantee supplies of fossil fuel. I wouldn't care to guess what these costs might be, but they are there.

In general, though, I haven't found attempts to legislature Virtue to be of much use. The results rarely match the goals.
We are closer to less than 3K per year. Minivan is 20 yrs old. Cannot purchase a new car. Credit is shot. Unlikely for credit to be repaired enough to get a new car w/o overpaying for it. We are on a fixed income, because hubby is medically retired.

I hope you are not going to blame me for the pollution that was made when this car was built? As for foreign ventures, if we in the US would get over NIMBY, & create better cars, that would go a long way.

I do not believe that this is an issue of Virtue. It is more of balance & responsibility; if we improve vehicles enough, & they are cheap enough, then, great. Maybe we should all ride horses!!! :lol: But then people would complain about the CO2 they would create!! We should take care of our planet, of course. The key question is how can we do this in an affordable manner that will not damage or destroy it or the economies nationally & worldwide.

The thread is about HSR, while we a little off topic, in our situation, and all current plans for HSR in our area, would not be something that would be usable for us. To my knowledge, there is no plans for HSR connecting from SLC to anywhere I would want/need to go.

We should be planting more trees, which consume CO2.
 
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As for those commuter RR's, there many only be three of them, but between them they take more than 700,000 people into and out of the city each weekday, and there are plenty more who board those trains to travel between intermediate points without ever setting foot in the city.
The one glaring problem with NYC's commuter rail network is the complete lack of circumferential lines, without which travel from one suburb to another is difficult, thus making it hard to dispose off ones auto if one lives out in the burbs. This is where London or Paris have a bit of leg up on NY. But it is also true that as you get further out of the city even those start resembling NY, Paris more so than London.

By the way, NYC doesn't rank in the top 10 US cities for most time lost commuting to work in one's car. And NYC, unlike most other major US cities, has no freeways that are wider than 3 lanes in each direction.
For wider Freeways you have to cross the river to NJ and experience the wonders of 10 and 12 lane highways. That of course if you ignore all the lanes on GW Bridge and Verrazano Narrows Bridge and even Staten Island Expressway. Of course true New Yorkers do not consider Staten Island to be part of New York City except when it comes to collecting taxes I am told :) Afterall, it ison the other side of the Hudson Ocean :)
 
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