Orsen:Rick Scott rejects money for high speed rail

Originally Posted By Mr X

***High speed rail is a not-for-profit business around the world, with the exception of the Tokyo-Osaka line and the Paris-Lyon line***

So what?

Billions of people use it, taxpayers fund it.

What's so wrong with that?

 

Originally Posted By Mr X

***Until Carter gave it back to the Panamanians in 1977, passing up the opportunity to gain more money for the US in the process***

Yeah, because America should keep its' meathooks in other countries to gain more money.

Nicely said.

 

Originally Posted By wahooskipper

I think the problem in Florida (and other states) is that in the current climate of budget deficits when really important programs such as education and health care are being cut...it doesn't make a lot of sense to plow money public money into high speed rail.

And, the State of Florida passed a number of initiatives that will make it hard for our economy to turn around even when things start improving.

I voted for high speed rail back when things were good. By and large I don't care for Rick Scott. But, given the context I've laid out I support his decision to pass. Now, if the Feds want to do us a favor then give us a billion dollars for schools instead of the train.

As I said elsewhere, 2010 is the first year in the history of Florida that we spent more on prisons and the penal system instead of education.

 

Originally Posted By davewasbaloo

That is aweful WS. Ironically if good preventative intervention programmes and social models were implemented, there would like be a reduction in crime rate. Most crime is totally linked to poverty.

 

Originally Posted By Manfried

If high speed railroad is so necessary, then davewasbaloo should raise the money to pay for it.

 

Originally Posted By Manfried

There are people who want, want, want. Yet refuse to understand those wants cost money.

 

Originally Posted By wahooskipper

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the government shouldn't be expected to pay for it. Governments pay for roads, ports, airports, etc. I rode the trains in Italy and found them to be a great way to travel the country.

I'm just not sure NOW is the time considering the state of Florida's economy. I think transportation is a necessity that government should provide...but I'm not sure it can be considered a priority given today's circumstances.

I look at NASA similarly...but at least in the case of space there are private entities out there that CAN make money on it.

 

Originally Posted By davewasbaloo

Lol Manfried, you make me laugh, considering that I work for government as a senior strategist. Lol. And FWIW, I am in favour of higher taxes for better services. More people sharing costs makes costs lower for all.

 

Originally Posted By TP2000

Mr. X<< "Yeah, because America should keep its' meathooks in other countries to gain more money.">>

I think it was the right thing to do to give the canal back to Panama. My point is that the profit motive was the reason for the canal being there, and now Panama is getting all the profit from the canal every year over and above the cost of maintaining and operating it. In 2009, profits from the Canal Authority padded the government's bottom line by about 750 Million dollars. Not bad for a tiny country in a down economy.

Things like the Transcontinental Railroads and the Panama Canal were wonderful human acheivements. But let's not pretend they were built just for a morale boost and to better mankind. They were built because there was immense profit to be made there.

The Space Race wasn't driven by profit, but it was driven and funded lavishly by something even more motivating; fear. We were afraid the Soviets would beat us and use the advantage in space to wage war and kill us and our allies.

Both of those two motivating factors, profit and fear, are entirely absent from regional high speed rail proposals. So it's no wonder high speed rail plans pale in comparison to the Southern Pacific building rail through the Sierras or the Army Corps of Engineers battling the swamps of Central America.

 

Originally Posted By fkurucz

>>If high speed railroad is so necessary, then davewasbaloo should raise the money to pay for it.<<

It's that mindset that's causing us to fall farther and ferther behind other countries, making us less competitive in the process.

Take internet access. We have have perhaps the slowest broadband system in the industrialized world, which puts us at a competitive disadvantage. IIRC DWB has commented in the past about how noticeably backward we are in the US in so many things, to the point where we are beginning to resemble a 3rd world country (This from a UK perspective)

 

Originally Posted By TP2000

Is that why we don't have an edit feature on these boards?

 

Originally Posted By dshyates

According to the state's ridership study, the Tampa-Orlando HSR line would have made a profit from it's very first year.

<a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-ridership-high-speed-20110309,0,2208786.story" target="_blank">http://www.orlandosentinel.com...86.story</a>

 

Originally Posted By Manfried

"I am in favour of higher taxes for better services. More people sharing costs makes costs lower for all." Right. That's worked so well as the pensions go higher and higher and higher.

"It's that mindset that's causing us to fall farther and ferther behind other countries, making us less competitive in the process."

No, it is businesses that keep thinking government is going to cover the cost and people like you who think the same thing. You want this, then put together a consortium and make it happen. Quit demanding government and taxpayers pay for it.

 

Originally Posted By Manfried

and bravo TP2000.

 

Originally Posted By SpokkerJones

Warren Buffett on the airline industry.

"And the interesting thing is, of course, is that if you go back to the time of Kitty Hawk, net, the airline transport business in the United States has made no money. I mean, just think if you had been down there at Kitty Hawk, and you had saw this guy [Wilbur Wright] go up [in the air], and all of a sudden this vision hit you that tens of millions of people would be doing this all over the world some day and that it would bring us all closer together and everything, and think my God this is something to be in on.

And despite putting in billions and billions and billions of dollars, the net return to owners from being in the entire airline industry, if you owned it all, and if you put up all this money, is less than zero.

If there had been a capitalist down there [at Kitty Hawk the day the Wright brothers made their first flight] the guy should have shot down Wilbur! I mean … [audience laughter]. You know… one small step for mankind, and one huge step backwards for capitalism!"

When you think about all those pilots trained in the military, the FAA, flight control infrastructure, local governments bending over backwards for airports and not to mention the TSA, the cost is immense. But no one thinks of that when they exclaim that you can fly from LA-SF for $59 (now $64, not including taxes and fees). Low-cost carriers can eek out a profit today, but I wonder how they are going to keep that up in the era of +$100 per gallon oil. Those fuel hedges don't last forever.

 

Originally Posted By SpokkerJones

"They were built because there was immense profit to be made there."

Anything to do with settling the West was profitable back then as long as there was land further West. Slavery and railroads were immensely profitable back then.

But there is a huge difference in opening up land to development and redeveloping land in response to environmental, mobility or oil concerns.

But that's what we know today. Back then, it was actually very hard to get anybody to invest in the railroad.

<a href="http://www.coxrail.com/land-grants.htm" target="_blank">http://www.coxrail.com/land-grants.htm</a>

"Rail historians know that both the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific were controlled by only a handful of stockholders. While that arrangement greatly benefitted those few people, it was not for their lack of trying to sell stock. There were just very few buyers.

The truth is, it was virtually impossible for the UP or CP officers to sell any stock except to themselves. Never mind that the transcontinental railroad was crucial to the country, typical investors considered the project too risky. They considered construction problems insurmountable, or nearly so. They considered hostile Indians would never allow settlement. Few ever thought the intermountain West would ever produce anything other than gold and silver. They simply considered the donated land as worthless. Had there been property taxes at the time, they probably would have considered the land grants as liabilities."

 

Originally Posted By TP2000

dshyates<< "According to the state's ridership study, the Tampa-Orlando HSR line would have made a profit from it's very first year."<<

<a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com...86.story" target="_blank">http://www.orlandosentinel.com...86.story</a>

They were predicting 3.3 Million people would ride the Tampa-Orlando train in its first year? That's a huge leap from near zero to 3.3 Million instantly. And its phony, puffed-up numbers like that which do absolutely no good to getting these systems off the ground. It only makes skeptics of voters like myself who are/were on the fence on whether to vote for bond measures and candidates who support it. We're not all stupid, amazing as that may seem.

Currently, there are no airlines offering scheduled flights from Tampa to Orlando. Check Expedia if you don't believe me, but they don't exist. Why? Because there is no market for high speed travel between those two cities, not even one lousy little 50 seat Embraer turboprop per day. Nothing. No flights between those two cities.

There is one train per day, the Silver Meteor, which charges 10 bucks and takes 1 hour 50 minutes to make the leg on its final leg of the New York - Tampa 2 day journey. A tiny amount of people take that medium-speed train between those two cities.

Greyhound offers four 50-seat buses per day between the two cities. It takes around 2 hours, and costs $28.00. The Orlando-Tampa leg is part of longer Eastern Seaboard routes, but let's just have fun and say that all 50 seats are taken on all four buses every day of the year. That's 200 people per day traveling each way between the cities. Not a huge market, obviously.

3.3 Million people would suddenly cram the Florida trains right out of the gate? And it would only grow in ridership from there?

As a point of reference, Amtrak's 12 year old Acela high-speed rail system in the Northeast had strong ridership growth last year and broke the 2.1 Million passenger mark for the entire system. That's 2.1 Million passengers total traveling between Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore-DC, or any combination thereof. 2.1 Million per year in the most congested urban corridor in the country, after 12 years of service building on 40 years of service with the previous Metroliner system Acela replaced.

The Boston-New York Acela route had a great year in '10, one of its busiest ever, with 593,000 rail passengers for the entire year. The airlines run dozens of shuttle flights per day between Boston-New York, and Greyhound has 30 separate buses traveling daily between those two cities. I-95 is jam packed with cars there.

And yet 3.3 Million will flock to the Tampa-Orlando route right out of the gate? Really? Dig a little deeper into the glowing projections, and it's no wonder Governor Scott was a tad skeptical.

And heck, I'm a railfan myself! I take Amtrak's long distance trains at least once per year, and the regional Surfliner service every few months. I like train travel a great deal. But I'm very, very skeptical of these government-approved ridership projections for HSR.

 

Originally Posted By SpokkerJones

"As a point of reference, Amtrak's 12 year old Acela high-speed rail system in the Northeast had strong ridership growth last year and broke the 2.1 Million passenger mark for the entire system. "

Acela is just one business/first-class service on the Northeast Corridor. Acela doesn't even offer coach fares.

Also operating on the corridor is the Northeast Regional and a myriad of commuter and long distance trains.

 

Originally Posted By TP2000

^^ Valid point, SpokkerJones.

We were talking high speed rail, so I just focused on the high speed rail system in the Northeast.

If you include all of the regional and long distance trains that operate over the Northeast Corridor, which number an amazing 2,200 trains per day running over at least some portion of that Boston to DC route, the annual number of Northeast Corridor riders is 10.3 Million passengers in 2010, per Amtrak's own statistics.

That 10.3 Million passenger figure includes many, many different types of trains obviously, from local commuters wedged into packed coaches to the suburbs, to high-speed upscale Acela from city to city, to the long distance Silver Meteor or Silver Palm with people enjoying full Sleeper Car service.

The population served by the huge Northeast Corridor metro areas is a hair over 41 Million people living in the metro areas of Boston-NYC-Philadelphia-Baltimore-DC. The population of the broad metro areas of Orlando-Tampa-St. Petersburg is a hair over 4 Million people.

While there was a popular excuse that tourists would take the train, although it wouldn't seem to be as convenient for getting to and from WDW than Magical Express or a rental car, even the most strident rail supporter doesn't think the tourist load on the Tampa-Orlando route would equal the 41 Million people living between DC and Boston.

The statistics just don't add up to 3.3 Million riders per year at start up for Florida High Speed Rail. The private sector has not yet identified a need for travel between those two cities faster than the drive on I-4, in the form of a single scheduled passenger flight per day between Tampa and Orlando.

I just can't figure out how the Florida boosters claimed the figures and statistics they did with a straight face. And when you look at all that stuff, it's more apparent why Governor Scott made the decision he did regarding turning down the free money from Washington DC that grows on cherry trees along the Potomac.

 

Originally Posted By Mr X

***Acela is just one business/first-class service on the Northeast Corridor. Acela doesn't even offer coach fares***

While I understand and agree with your overall point, I'm not quite understanding how a high speed service could offer "coach" fares...I mean, all high speed service (in Japan, at least) charges a premium compared to any sort of "local" service you can get (even long distance, which *is* available pretty much wherever the high speed trains run).

In other words, a "coach" ticket would necessarily be found on the slower trains, it wouldn't make much sense if the higher speed services offered the same price (who would ride the slow ones then?).