The California state senator proposes a no-speed-limit highway, by using funds originaly marked for the state’s high speed train. As frosting on the cake, T.Rump has cancelled $929M in funding for the rail project. Anyone surprised?
https://news.yahoo.com/american-autobahn-next-states-pushing-111617225.html
I wouldn’t be surprised if they went so far as to make the “limitless” roads into toll roads, forcing users to buy-in for the experience.
West Texas and the like is one thing. Otherwise, the rule of thumb is still “Speed Kills!”
To tie this with the California bullet train boondoggle is ridiculous.
Politically driven boondoggles tend to be spectacular fails. No exception here. (If only they printed the $$$ amount for what the locals siphoned out of the project already that were not HSR direct investments, then it might get really silly.)
Simple fact, looking at the country as a whole, only a small percentage of people have life styles that would benefit from high speed rail.
Why should the rest of us pay for it?
I like trains, but nothing about my daily/weekly transportation needs could be met by a train, same is true for about 97% of the people I know.
Now, if it was a choice between good rail service and getting on an airplane for a medium distance intercity travel, rail would be my first choice.
Time may not be that much of an issue - example:
I live an hour or more from any major airport.
If I want to travel from my home in rural northeast Maryland to suburban Detroit, MI where I have family, by air it takes me 2-3 hours to leave my home, get to the airport, and take off, for a less than two hour flight, than an hour or longer to get to my destination in suburban Detroit.
That is 6-7 hours portal to portal, maybe more.
I can drive there in 8 hours? Why would I fly?
But if I could take a train (an AMTRAK station is 12 minutes from my rural Maryland home) and get there in 8-10 hours, the relaxation of not driving would be worth a price equal to the air fare.
LARGELY because there is nothing “relaxing” about driving to the airport, hiking around the terminal, going thru security, waiting to board, etc, etc, - for all that BS I would rather drive.
We don’t need limited route high speed rail to accomplish this.
I hav
As for the other topic, highway speed limits, I live in a rural part of the I-95 corridor. The traffic on I-95 moves at a consistant 75-80 mph despite the 65 mph speed limits.
Countless studies have shown that “speed does not kill”, speed DIFFERENTIAL kills. Too much difference in speed between the fastest and slowest vehicles is the main cause of limited access highway crashes.
Vehicles going the same speed have a much harder time crashing into each other. They still can, they just have to work much harder at it.
So lets do this, put more of those pesky 80,000 lb truck trailers on flat cars, unclog the highways, raise the speed limits, and inforce minimum speeds on limited access highways.
One more FACT, less than 10% of the traffic deaths nation wide occur on limited access highways.
IN FACT most traffic deaths occure within one mile of one of the drivers home, on local roads with speed limits of 45 mph or less, and excessive speeding is seldom noted as the cause. Most are pilot errors in violating someones “right of way”.
Average cars today stop better, handle better, and are way safer than ever before, exponentially…teach people to drive, get them off their phones, get them to put down the weed and the beer…
And let the expressways be what they were designed to be…fast…
Sheldon
Easier said than done…
The problem is that the Autobahn was built to be higher speed in some areas, our Interstate system I believe was built to 70 or 75 mph standards? Not sure which, one of the posters here older than me might be able to clarify that. As with HSR design, you can’t just increased the speeds ad infinitum without re-engineering the on and off ramps as well as the curves in the road. So 85 mph is probably as high as your going to see the speed limit.
Also, your really optimistic that a General Motors car will hold together if driven routinely at 85 mph. I don’t have that optimism having almost a lifetime of experience with GM cars before I switched to Mercedes. Interesting how my Mercedes SUV compares to my former Buick Lucerne in body weight, MPG, pollution, road vibration, safety features, etc. The Buick was more expensive to own on an annual basis (maintenence wise), burned more fuel with about 1/3 less body weight, I could fill half a page with the GM issues.
Also, I can tell you from experience driving 30 mph on the Autobahn with a 13 ton armored vehicle in a convoy…not everyone goes 110 mph or faster. It is mixed speed even without the NATO convoys. Perhaps at the most 15-20% use the higher speed in unlimited areas and typically only in the far left lane. Some rural drivers will insist on driving the lower speed limit of the range no matter what the upper speed limit is.
They used to have a much higher octane fuel in Germany than is sold in the United States and the German engines are also engineered to use the higher octane fuel…it&#
I think that forcing others to pay to advance your own priority has become the modernday definition of “power”.
Liberal = A person who feels a great debt to his fellow man, a debt he proposes to pay with other peoples money.
Conservative = A person who has paid his debt to his fellow man, by earning his own money.
Sheldon
Lets assume that were true.
Non riders would still economically benefit from the higher rents people were willing to pay to be near the HSR stations and off shoot commercial developments.
Non riders would still economically benefit by increasing the productivity of the few that could take the HSR, if the HSR was comparitively faster than taking a plane.
[quote user=“CMStPnP”]
zardoz
The California state senator proposes a no-speed-limit highway, by using funds originaly marked for the state’s high speed train. As frosting on the cake, T.Rump has cancelled $929M in funding for the rail project. Anyone surprised?
Easier said than done…
The problem is that the Autobahn was built to be higher speed in some areas, our Interstate system I believe was built to 70 or 75 mph standards? Not sure which, one of the posters here older than me might be able to clarify that. As with HSR design, you can’t just increased the speeds ad infinitum without re-engineering the on and off ramps as well as the curves in the road. So 85 mph is probably as high as your going to see the speed limit.
Also, your really optimistic that a General Motors car will hold together if driven routinely at 85 mph. I don’t have that optimism having almost a lifetime of experience with GM cars before I switched to Mercedes. Interesting how my Mercedes SUV compares to my former Buick Lucerne in body weight, MPG, pollution, road vibration, safety features, etc. The Buick was more expensive to own on an annual basis (maintenence wise), burned more fuel with about 1/3 less body weight, I could fill half a page with the GM issues.
Also, I can tell you from experience driving 30 mph on the Autobahn with a 13 ton armored vehicle in a convoy…not everyone goes 110 mph or faster. It is mixed speed even without the NATO convoys. Perhaps at the most 15-20% use the higher speed in unlimited areas and typically only in the far left lane. Some rural drivers will insist on driving the lower speed limit of the range no
What we really have is the divide between Progressives and Regressives. Regressives never progress!
I guess we all have different opinons on what constitutes “progress”.
For me progress does not include more control, more welfare, more taxes, or more government.
Adam Smith suggested that the government that governs least , governs best, and that my first obligation to my fellow man was to take care of myself and my family so that others would not have to.
After that I have a moral obligation to do what I can for those in need, but Jefferson suggested I should not be compelled to do that against my values at the gun point of the tax collector.
How about some real progress, inact the tax system proposed by Henry George and do away with the low bid system of government contracts like he proposed
How do I benefit from those who are willing to pay outrageous rents in the city?
And most of those people do not produce wealth, they simply make money manipulating wealth. Their “productivity” is not likely to increase, or benefit others in any way that equals the cost of limited route high speed rail.
I create wealth, I take $200,000 worth of raw materials (and labor) and turn it into a $300,000 home…
Sheldon
The Interstates were built for two reasons - to move military equipment (which is why they were thick reinforced concrete) and to quickly evacuate people from population centers.
These days you’re not likely to see an M1 Abrams on the Interstate, and the only time you see evacuations is on the weekends and ahead of hurricanes (when they turn into linear parking lots).
I was pleasantly surprised to see the speed limit on I75 in Michigan rise to 75 MPH once I got north of Saginaw on my way to cross “Big Mac” last year. A retired trooper I know once said “nine is fine, ten you’re mine.” So the cruise got set for 84 MPH and away I went.
Around here the majority of traffic incidents on the Interstate are related to the weather - a la winter - when folks forget or don’t know to slow down, thus finding themselves in the ditch.
And yes, most accidents occur within a mile or two from home - which is why Bubba moved…
[quote user=“tree68”]
CMStPnP
The problem is that the Autobahn was built to be higher speed in some areas, our Interstate system I believe was built to 70 or 75 mph standards? Not sure which, one of the posters here older than me might be able to clarify that. As with HSR design, you can’t just increased the speeds ad infinitum without re-engineering the on and off ramps as well as the curves in the road. So 85 mph is probably as high as your going to see the speed limit.
The Interstates were built for two reasons - to move military equipment (which is why they were thick reinforced concrete) and to quickly evacuate people from population centers.
These days you’re not likely to see an M1 Abrams on the Interstate, and the only time you see evacuations is on the weekends and ahead of hurricanes (when they turn into linear parking lots).
I was pleasantly surprised to see the speed limit on I75 in Michigan rise to 75 MPH once I got north of Saginaw on my way to cross “Big Mac” last year. A retired trooper I know once said “nine is fine, ten you’re mine.” So the cruise got set for 84 MPH and away I went.
Around here the majority of traffic incidents on the Interstate are related to the weather - a la winter - when folks forget or don’t know to slow down, thus finding themselves in the ditch.
If you are taking $200K of materials and turning it in to a $300K home, you must not value your own time very highly. $100K sounds like a lot - in today’s world, considering you won’t bet the only individual that is putting the home together there are a lot of subcontractors time and efforts that will have to be compensated.
I’ve checked mine via GPS a number of times - it’s about 2 MPH high at 65.
Well, you are right, I was typing too fast, and left out “and labor”. The gross margin is about 30%.
And to be more specific, we hardly ever build new homes, we do custom renovations and historic restoration work.
And we are highly “green”, we stop our history from ending up in the land fill, replaced by vinyl and cardboard cracker jack boxes…
We save stuff like this from the wrecking ball or the cheezy vinyl siding remodeler:
Sheldon
High Speed Rail is actually building something.
Changing highway speed limits isn’t.