Originally Posted By ecdc >>Milwaukee doesn't need it because getting around by car is much easier around here.<< Getting around by car isn't the issue. The issue is future congestion, cost, and population growth. Right now it might be easier to get around Milwaukee. But the cost of doing nothing in the long run will be much more expensive than the high speed rail and developing mass transit. Again, it's not about right now and what's easiest for you. It's not about convenience. It's about solving a big problem that we will face in the future and our children will face in the future. It's also about keeping up in a global economy and an increasingly competitive market.
Originally Posted By DAR And if people want to take rail then that's their perogative. I don't see the need to take nor should I be forced to take it.
Originally Posted By plpeters70 <<It's about solving a big problem that we will face in the future and our children will face in the future.>> I really don't know if an America that can only think about the next quarter's profits will be able to get the job done. I hope they will, but I just don't know.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Why is it that conservatives can clearly see how the deficit is going to affect their children and grandchildren down the road... but fail to see how worsening traffic congestion, population growth, and dwindling oil reserves will require alternative transportation solutions to our bloated highways?
Originally Posted By plpeters70 << I don't see the need to take nor should I be forced to take it.>> Are you really do ignorant that you think that building trains means that you'll somehow be forced to take them? How did you make that leap??
Originally Posted By ecdc >>How did you make that leap??<< The same way conservatives made the leap from healthcare reform to Obama is Hitler. When you don't know the facts you resort to wild strawmen to attack. It's the new conservative MO: They don't need the facts; they just know that any government plan to improve anything is really a bid to take away someone's freedom to be as irresponsible as an American as they can be. Wanna drive a gas guzzler? It's your right as an American! Wanna pay low taxes and then whine about the quality of government services? What could be more American than that? If it brings our country to its knees in 30 or 50 years, who cares? At least Americans right now don't have to be inconvenienced.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>So in other words shut up DAR<< Who said that? In other words, come up with a cogent argument. Saying, "It's more convenient for me to take a car" is kind of like, "duh." It's more convenient for most everybody. That's exactly the problem. The convenience is killing us in terms of congestion and cost, to say nothing of the environment. So we need to come up with an alternative. If you have reasons why high speed rail is a bad idea or won't work, I'm all for hearing them. But saying "My car works good!" is missing the point entirely. That's not telling you to shut up, it's telling you that it's missing the point of the problem.
Originally Posted By DAR Guess what I like driving my car. I that if I'm running late I don't have to wait another 10 minutes for the next bus or train to come along. Then I don't have to wait for the bus or train to drop off one group, pick up the next at each and every stop. I like having that freedom and ability I get with a car.
Originally Posted By DAR And I've also said that Milwaukee is not an ideal city to have a high speed rail because of the relative ease of getting in this city.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Guess what I like driving my car. I that if I'm running late I don't have to wait another 10 minutes for the next bus or train to come along. Then I don't have to wait for the bus or train to drop off one group, pick up the next at each and every stop. I like having that freedom and ability I get with a car.<< Again, duh. Everyone likes their car and likes the convenience. So let's just stop the hyperbolic nonsense and strawman like "I gee I guess I'm so terrible for liking my car!" I like my car. I like the convenience. But I can also step back and see that we can't continue to just expand roads and we can't keep going with the status quo. Something needs to change. So what should that be?
Originally Posted By DAR Personally I don't have the patience right now to wait for a bus and wouldn't for a train especially if I have to be somewhere.
Originally Posted By plpeters70 <<Personally I don't have the patience right now to wait for a bus and wouldn't for a train especially if I have to be somewhere.>> You would if you lived somewhere like LA where a trip can either take you 20 min, or 2 hours depending on the traffic. And you never have any way of planning because you never know when the roads are going to be really bad. That city needs mass transit - fast!
Originally Posted By dshyates I just bought 3 AMTTRAK tix from WV to NYC. I am taking my 2 daughters to NYC for their first trip to the big city. The train takes 11 hours and the tix cost $302. It takes at least 10 hours to drive it. It would cost me a couple of hundred in gas, and the hotel has valet parking that is $75/night. It is costing me less to take the train. It drops us off 6 blocks from our hotel. AND I get to spend quality time with my girls while en route instead of haveing them strapped in the back seat while I drive. and I don't have to drive in NYC and deal with parking. While in NYC we wil be using the subway to get around so I won't need a car. Did I mention we will be starting out in West Virginia? That is pretty much as "in the middle of nowhere" as you can get. Plus I think the kids will really dig traveling by train.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder ^^^^ That sounds really cool. Enjoy your trip. I have always wanted to travel by train. Maybe when we retire.
Originally Posted By DAR <<You would if you lived somewhere like LA where a trip can either take you 20 min, or 2 hours depending on the traffic. And you never have any way of planning because you never know when the roads are going to be really bad. That city needs mass transit - fast!>> Again I see that it's ideal for LA.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy It's ideal for Wisconsin, too. You can't go on barfing up suburban sprawl forever. It's simply unaffordable. Cities can't afford it. Taxpayers can't afford it. If rail doesn't work for you -- it's probably because your city or town was allowed to develop willy nilly without any regard to efficient use of land, transit, or municipal resources. You have to build the infrastructure now that encourages cities to develop with greater density and concentration of municipal resources. Otherwise, every city in the country will be bankrupt trying to pay for an ever expanding swath of roads, sewers, police precincts, fire stations, parks, and schools that cannot be paid for with the tax base generated by tract homes and strip malls. You simply can't gut the industrial sector in this country and replace it with cul-de-sacs and Best Buy. The math doesn't work out.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones Some advice from our friends in Texas. Yes, a Republican Texas politician gets it. <a href="http://www.austincontrarian.com/austincontrarian/2009/11/again-texas-roads-dont-pay-for-themselves.html" target="_blank">http://www.austincontrarian.co...ves.html</a> "Mike Krusee, [AC: former] chairman of the Texas House of Representatives Transportation Committee, said that financial problems were more significant than environmental, though they should be tied together in the same discussion. "The reason there's not a new transportation bill is because there is no money. We've hit the wall of unsustainability on how we finance the transportation system," he said. Krusee asserted it was urgent and necessary to understand the nature of this broken financial apparatus and to develop solutions to fix it. In Texas, he said that, on average, it cost the state 20-30 cents per person per mile to build and maintain a road to the suburbs, yet drivers only pay on average 2-3 cents per mile through the gas tax, vehicles fees, etc. "What we found was that no road that we built in Texas paid for itself," said Krusee. "None."" This is Texas, not exactly a liberal paradise. The problem is also building utilities out into the suburbs. "The expense to build roads and utilities further and further from the urban cores not only drove costs to unsustainable levels, it created an imbalance in who paid for growth. Over the past 50 years, Krusee argued, the federal government used tax money that came by and large from cities to subsidize roads to areas without access otherwise." The fight isn't over whether or not we subsidize transit or train riders because transit doesn't make any money (though most high speed rail systems cover their operational costs). The fight is over who receives the transportation subsidy. Drivers don't want to lose their subsidies, and they will go as far to say that the mode of transportation they want to cling to pays for itself out of ignorance or a deliberate intent to misinform.
Originally Posted By DAR <<It's ideal for Wisconsin, too.>> But if I know this state and especially this city. At the very beginning the ridership will be high because of the curiosity factor but eventually it'll tail off and you could be looking at 1/2 to 3/4 empty trains. That wouldn't exactly be feasible.
