The only change I see in this plan is the separation of capital improvements and maintaining the present routes. If and that is a big if those two items can remain separate then the maintaing of “in service” facilities is very important. All of our posters has noted before how AMTRAK has not had enough capital to remain in a state of good repair. If it had not been for the one time grant to make many necessary repairs under ARRA I would suspect that AMTRAK would have a much lower on time performance record and would not be carrying record number of passengers.
Comments?
Seems like some of the newly elected govenors are a little gun-shy of the Administration’s desire to give away billions (or millions) to facilitate their dream of HSR.
From an Associated Press story dated 02/16/2011 on Fox News’ website:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/16/florida-gov-scott-cancels-tampa-orlando-high-speed-train/
“Florida Gov. Scott Cancels Tampa-Orlando High-Speed Train”
FTL: "…Scott said he believes that ridership and revenue projections tend to be too optimistic and would likely require ongoing state government subsidies. Finally, Scott noted, that if the project went belly-up, Florida would be required to refund the federal government’s investment in the project. "
"…Gov. Scott said he informed U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood of his decision earlier Wednesday. Republican governors in Ohio and Wisconsin have also rejected high-speed rail plans…"
Looks like the Federal Gov. which lays the golden eg
Even as we speak, NC has temporarily suspended the noon Piedmont between Charlotte and Raleigh because they are using the daylight hours to upgrade the ROW, crossings, and signals for higher speeds. The project began 2/14 and is schedule to be completed by 4/21.
http://www.bytrain.org/docs/RemindertrackWork21011.pdf
We are continuing to build ours but that is probably because … oh never mind.
Also interesting:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/13/AR2011021302203.html
The “global” argument against HSR. Heard before many places - a bit better thought out an explained than most.
This is not to say there aren’t niches where passenger rail, HSR in particular, wouldn’t work, but the “inherent goodness” just ain’t there.
The title to this post is incorrect. The $53 billion high-speed rail plan was floated by the Obama administration in the budget it tendered to the Congress. To label the Obama Administration as the United States government in toto is misleading, if not an outright lie.
Scott was elected Florida’s governor to extract the state from ill-conceived, big ticket sinkholes like the one connecting Busch Gardens with Disney World. That’s why I voted for him, and wonder of wonders, he came through.
Interesting, though an article that cites Randal O’Toole of the extremist Cato Foundation might be less than objective.