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About railroads, Republican Presidential candidates say little
Fact check on the Chris Christie comments: He killed the tunnel project because as originally structured New Jersey was on the hook for any and all construction and operating cost overruns, and New York State and City got off scot free. When the New York people refused to budge on negotiations, he pulled out. He is very much in support of a revamped deal which does a much more equitable job of sharing costs between all who would benefit by it.
Most republicans are against passenger railroad transportation because the receive money from highway special interests. You can see that in their actions. The jury is still out on Chris Christie as pointed out before. He has ridden Amtrak before, but I don’t have much hope that he would be any different from the others.
See the recent news about Chris Christie kicked out of the quiet car on Amtrak - he’s a regular Amtrak user. So is Hillary Clinton.
The other reason Christie canceled the NJ Transit tunnel is that it was flawed by not connecting to Penn Station.
I can tell you from Vermont that Bernie Sanders is a steadfast rail supporter - one of the only politicians I know to have his own rail expert on staff. Bernie normally flies from DC to Vermont, but I’ve been on trains with him at events.
First, Christie was not “kicked out” of the quiet car but quietly reprimanded and quickly ended the phone conversation, apologized, and moved to a non quiet car. Second, yeah, financing had a lot to do with his bailing on the tunnel project. But it was also made clear that it was not a good project for NJT nor riders. Input from NY, be it money or otherwise, is more important to the project than a dead end station in Manhattan. And third, is the fact that Christie actually chose to ride to and from D.C. via Amtrak Sunday morning because plane is not economical nor efficient between the two cities and driving I95 not an old fashioned Sunday drive. On a much broader scope it points out the need for passenger rail services properly run and marketed: it will be used for convenience, economy and efficiency. Many in rural areas or just outside corridors or not in urban/suburban areas don’t seem to understand how rail passenger services are important to the local economies, environment, and overall transit needs.
Regarding Mr. Christie and the tunnel brouhaha, there are several countervailing points to remember, one being that he took the billions and spread them around, possibly illegally, on statewide road projects, the other is that 5 years of tunnelling progress has been lost.
While the original plan made no sense whatsoever, there can be no doubt that once work was well underway, the cost overruns associated with the logical plan, which avoided the stub end station, would have been considered money well spent.
Regarding Mr. Christie and the tunnel brouhaha, there are several countervailing points to remember, one being that he took the billions and spread them around, possibly illegally, on statewide road projects, the other is that 5 years of tunnelling progress has been lost.
While the original plan made no sense whatsoever, there can be no doubt that once work was well underway, the cost overruns associated with the logical plan, which avoided the stub end station, would have been considered money well spent.
Well, we now know the " political flavor " of this ( news outlet ?). It’s especially disappointing, lack of facts journalism, by the contributor, Justin Franz. Is he your company’s affirmative action employee ? I think he would have more possibilities for advancement working for the DNC !! Maybe the New York Times !!
One basic question that should be asked of all the candidates is how would you increase funding of the broken Federal Highway Trust Fund. It would be interesting to see how many would slip-slide their way out of saying anything of substance or sense. Many states are having to increase their state gas taxes for basic road maintenance. Forget about about any new road building. If the states want it they will have to pay for it themselves. That seems to be the new way.
Thanks. Some comments:
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People differ in their recollection of Christie’s ARC cancellation. My recollection is that there was a lot of “belt tightening” rhetoric at the time, Christie - in line with most Republican governors at the time - was under pressure to be seen as cutting spending during the recession. I think the “Oh it was because NJ had to pay too much compared to other governments” stuff is recent justification for what, now, seems a ridiculous decision to make.
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Jeb Bush does indeed seem to be hostile toward passenger rail although did nothing to endanger Tr-Rail while he was President. Still, he’d obviously oppose an expansion in which the government is involved in any way, and he was opposed /before/ the Tea Party/Obama made it “cool” to oppose HSR amongst the right wing.
I’m just not seeing it as likely a pro-passenger rail President will come from the Republicans this election. From the Democrats, unfortunately we’ve lost Biden, and Clinton is almost certainly going to win and she’s neither well known as a passenger rail pusher, nor someone likely to achieve much - given a Congress likely to be even more hostile to her than Obama’s - anyway.
@ROBERT KLIPPEL - Your comments are neither constructive, explaining where you see fault, nor is your “affirmative action” reference consistent with human decency.
Save for Governor Christie most of them have probably never been on a train before.
I would very much doubt any of the candidates have much understanding how our freight network gets the food and goods this country consume to their table. Hewlett Packard under Carly Fiorina did very little manufacturing of products, just had others make what they designed. Trump probably has no idea how the thousands of gallons his Boeing 757 uses gets to the airport. Nor the logistics of how stuff moves in this country from farm to packer to warehouse to store. I could go on.
Most of the people who would have been using the canceled ARC project were New Jersey residents who work in New York City.
Actually Amtrak is quite popular along the NE Corridor by business and political leaders. And that includes Hillary Clinton as well as Chris Christie and Joe Biden. Many member of Congress and government agencies, members of the media, show business, and Wall Street find Acela services attractive in schedule, amenities, comfort, and price. One of the attitudes I see when Amtrak is discussed is the lack of understanding of many outside of urban areas especially concerning use of passenger trains. Some of that attitude stems from Amtrak being a government run service and the commuter lines being under local governments controls; they feel it smacks of socialism so they won’t go there. Some of it is snobbery because those outside of urban areas own their own vehicles so they often think that only indigents would use public transportation be it commuter train or bus or intercity Amtrak.
If the Republican contingent of Presidential candidates and other political jobs are outright against passenger rail it is easy to say they are under contract and control of the so called highway and big oil lobby. Some will charge that it is because they are under the influence of private capital businesses and passenger rail doesn’t fit when it needs public financial support and agencies. It thus becomes that gray area of US political definitions of Socialism vs Capitalism and thus is a matter for arguing than producing something which the country needs. If you think about even a private enterprise (a for profit entity) can successfully earn a profit when governments or agencies own the railroad and hire the companies. Sounds like private enterprise but is it when the public pays to have the entity to perform and sell the service? Rhetoric. Political rhetoric. To be polite.
Harrison, The truth hurts, doesn’t it ? There is obviously a huge double- standard with the media, and a lot of the folks that comment. I’m not particularly concerned about ‘political correctness’ !
Mr. Harrison, Re: Clinton. I wouldn’t be so quick to discount her ability to make significant achievements. Sure, the GOP hates her but lets be honest, they would hate anyone the democrats elect. More importantly, she’s not an ideologue; I think she (like her husband) will do whatever it takes to get things done. Does that mean more pro-rail policies? Who knows.
Mr. Klippel, I wonder if you understand the difference between saying something that is politically incorrect and just saying something that amounts to a schoolyard insult. It’s one thing if you’re taking an unpopular position on an issue because of a certain belief system you have, or because of a specific line of reasoning, but simply putting someone down because they said something you don’t like is very different. If you’re so sure that this article is flawed, why not point out the factual errors?
Republican hopefuls say little about rail because they know nothing! Duh!!!
Maybe they prefer to privatise Amtrak so they could operate on routes where they break even and go ahead to install electronic tolling on all Interstates to cut taxes. I can`t see taxes go down when they can spend on something else that is not as feasible.
@Ian Narita. And your point is?