3 ms·

Okay, but does it add 5 times or more value? We're not talking about a 10% difference in price tag. Both are a long term maintenance drain, yes. But one has wid

Okay, but does it add 5 times or more value? We're not talking about a 10% difference in price tag. Both are a long term maintenance drain, yes. But one has wide potential use, the other is niche. One is civilian commuter only. The other is civilian commuter, commercial cargo and even military transport (the amount of convoys using I25 in that area is extremely frequent). The city got donations and grants to widen the highway because of wide usage. While I do see your argument that a rail can lighten the traffic load for I25, is $1.8B worth it? It already wasn't worth it when thinking in terms of 50k usage. You're now saying it's going to have less and that's still good? Local gov don't get to treat money like the fed. They ultimately do have to act like a business with profit and loss ratios. While their profits are to be used for expanse of civil and social programs, they can't operate at losses indefinitely. Detroit is a fantastic example of what happens when a city doesn't do responsible fiscal planning. Just because it isn't directly "your money" doesn't mean you can dumpster fire it on super sexy ideas. HSR is all about the dick measuring of, "Look what we have. It doesn't do much, but we have it. We're just like Japan and Europe. We so cool." It's like that $700 Juicero, over engineered, wifi enabled juicer that squeezed pre-juiced drinks into a glass. Packets of juice that could be squeezed by hand or just cut open with $5 scissors and poured into a glass. Fuck, you had to provide your own drinking vessel to that Silicon Valley stupidity. At least Bolthouse drinks don't require anything more than unscrewing the cap. Just because something is cool, popular and sexy doesn't mean it's the right solution. It makes more sense to expand the highway and just fully subsidize the Mustang service between the two cities for poor commuters. It'll be far cheaper on the tax payers and still provide the benefits for the local community. This is the point. Why spend $1.8b on something when there's a more effective $350m solution?

thethethethe 6y ago
All of your arguments are logical in the short term but I think you are not looking at the bigger picture. HSR isn't about just building one rail line between two cities and calling it good. It's about building a network, investing in more public transportation and general infrastructure supporting the trains to make the more efficient. It's about reducing emissions and pollution. Improving these things have more impact on people's lives and open up new opportunities than just reducing the travel times between two cities. And these things don't need to be payed for by the local governments, it can be nationalized and payed for by the fed like other countries do. The fed has demonstrated that it can print 5 trillion dollars in a year but it won't invest anything infrastructure. There is no excuse
- Fern_Blossom 6y ago
  I do hope you're not considering the highway system as a short-term, disconnected system. Last I checked, it's been a pretty good long-term, networked infrastructure project. How would HSR differ from traditional rail infrastructure in the modern age? Rail was phenomenal pre-affordable automobiles. I get that it was the cornerstone of America's rise to power in the 19th century. But even back in its heyday, it crumbled, pre-automobile. The over development of rail was a massive problem for the American economy due to its limitations. It's expensive to lay rail. It's expensive to maintain. It can't go in all the places roads can. Rail is niche in transportation and does what it does well, mass heavy cargo transpo to far distances, like 1k mile distances. Shorter than that, it's not really that economical. This is why you see lumber, coal, gypsum and other raw materials normally moved on rail. Or slow container goods from coast to coast. It's not used for as many goods as people think. If we, as an economy, dropped just-in-time-inventory practices, yes, rail would come back. Absolutely. But we moved to lean/just-in-time-inventory styles of production. That requires nimble transpo on accessible and prevalent paths to final destinations. Unloading train cars isn't efficient whether it's conexed or binned in small quantities. You better have ordered a few train cars worth of materials in one go to make it worth it. There's a good reason why in many industrial areas the rails are overgrown and decayed. No one uses them anymore because a semi-truck takes it straight to the commercial customer without extra logistical steps of coordination. At that, there's the drawbacks to HSR. You only achieve those speeds on long, straight stretches. If you've road tripped the USA or worked as a truck driver for a while (I did for 7 months OTR), there are these things called mountains. It's cheaper to go around or over, not through. HSR currently can't be fully utilized at it's desired speeds with too many bends or severe changes in elevations. Semi trucks and cars do far better in these aspects. HSR would have to slow down to conventional speeds too often to see much for benefit. Trains need long braking distances in miles, not feet. As a practical example, this is the problem with the north east HSR. There are only a few stretches where it's fully utilized, giving marginal benefit to regular rail. I think it was some 20% of the length is actually "high speed". Like, this is my big problem with people who have never worked in logistics. The articles written about HSR are best case scenarios in places that it happens to work in. Then, the general public gets a hard-on for HSR when they don't understand a single thing about the process. It's survivorship bias and dunning kruger. Hell, I know I'm barely scratching the surface of the issue at that. Yes, it works in places where the ground is flat, the population density is high and the country's gov can take land without paying for it. One of those applies decently to a decent portion to the US, but then population density there is extremely low. Then, eminent domain is an extremely touchy subject in the USA. I'm not a fan of the angle of, "It'll improve people's lives" as some blanket concept. Not only has Silicon Valley abused the hell of the concept, "Making the world a better place through xyz", if you can't point exactly how, it's not a real argument. Which seriously, you've just been keyword dropping, not giving hard facts of benefits. You saying that makes it seem you're assuming I want to harm the general American public. Yea, I want all American's lives to improve. I completely believe HSR will not achieve any betterment. I actually think it'll harm more. You saying, "it'll help people" doesn't make all the problems of HSR okay. How does HSR improve lives more? Faster commutes, to where? No one WANTS to commute. People don't want to commute 10 minutes to work. Now it's cool to wait at a station for 10-15 minutes to get on a train, for 20-40 minutes of the commute, to then walk/taxi to their work? Then do it all over again the other direction? Hopefully you don't want to hang out with your coworkers in whatever town you commute to. Commuter rails aren't 24/7. They operate only during rush hours. People want to work in-town as much as possible. That's a better investment strategy for a city to optimize. At that, low-income jobs should not require high commute times. That's what's worth tackling, not trying to increase that distance. There have been many programs trying to transpo low-income workers to farther distances. It has always locked those people into those jobs because of the time sink of those commutes. HSR isn't going to magically fix that. If you take Japan as an example, their HSR didn't fix commute times: https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/average-work-commute-time-japan/ https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/average-work-commu... Over time, jobs get displaced to more centralized areas. Better paying jobs that would be in smaller cities, get sent to other cities and congregate there. Just like you have Silicon Valley and New York. Industries like to mingle with each other closely if possible. Now, you force more people to travel farther than needed. Economic competition is just going to snowball it more. If HSR is going to give us Japanese 1 hour plus commute times, no. Just plain no. It defeats the whole damn purpose. Also, the fed doesn't just "print" money. That's a youtube cartoon understanding of how the financial system works. It's covered by bonds. Essentially loans with a few extra steps. This creates debt, which yes, is a problem. But this isn't "money printer go brrr". Amtrak is pretty much nationalized and is a giant clusterfuck. Nationalize all the things isn't the best strategy. And yes, this topic peeves me. It's a Haliburton like scheme for certain firms to make a ton of money off of taxpayers in the disguise of, "It's all about helping the poor people. If you hate HSR, you hate poor people." No.
lumost 6y ago
building an isolated rail line is a horrendous investment. Dense urban planning that reduces the need for individual car ownership is a boon to productivity. What are the costs to the local community for car ownership, gas, insurance, accidents, pollution and parking?

thethethethe 6y ago

All of your arguments are logical in the short term but I think you are not looking at the bigger picture. HSR isn't about just building one rail line between two cities and calling it good. It's about building a network, investing in more public transportation and general infrastructure supporting the trains to make the more efficient. It's about reducing emissions and pollution. Improving these things have more impact on people's lives and open up new opportunities than just reducing the travel times between two cities. And these things don't need to be payed for by the local governments, it can be nationalized and payed for by the fed like other countries do. The fed has demonstrated that it can print 5 trillion dollars in a year but it won't invest anything infrastructure. There is no excuse

Fern_Blossom 6y ago
I do hope you're not considering the highway system as a short-term, disconnected system. Last I checked, it's been a pretty good long-term, networked infrastructure project. How would HSR differ from traditional rail infrastructure in the modern age? Rail was phenomenal pre-affordable automobiles. I get that it was the cornerstone of America's rise to power in the 19th century. But even back in its heyday, it crumbled, pre-automobile. The over development of rail was a massive problem for the American economy due to its limitations. It's expensive to lay rail. It's expensive to maintain. It can't go in all the places roads can. Rail is niche in transportation and does what it does well, mass heavy cargo transpo to far distances, like 1k mile distances. Shorter than that, it's not really that economical. This is why you see lumber, coal, gypsum and other raw materials normally moved on rail. Or slow container goods from coast to coast. It's not used for as many goods as people think. If we, as an economy, dropped just-in-time-inventory practices, yes, rail would come back. Absolutely. But we moved to lean/just-in-time-inventory styles of production. That requires nimble transpo on accessible and prevalent paths to final destinations. Unloading train cars isn't efficient whether it's conexed or binned in small quantities. You better have ordered a few train cars worth of materials in one go to make it worth it. There's a good reason why in many industrial areas the rails are overgrown and decayed. No one uses them anymore because a semi-truck takes it straight to the commercial customer without extra logistical steps of coordination. At that, there's the drawbacks to HSR. You only achieve those speeds on long, straight stretches. If you've road tripped the USA or worked as a truck driver for a while (I did for 7 months OTR), there are these things called mountains. It's cheaper to go around or over, not through. HSR currently can't be fully utilized at it's desired speeds with too many bends or severe changes in elevations. Semi trucks and cars do far better in these aspects. HSR would have to slow down to conventional speeds too often to see much for benefit. Trains need long braking distances in miles, not feet. As a practical example, this is the problem with the north east HSR. There are only a few stretches where it's fully utilized, giving marginal benefit to regular rail. I think it was some 20% of the length is actually "high speed". Like, this is my big problem with people who have never worked in logistics. The articles written about HSR are best case scenarios in places that it happens to work in. Then, the general public gets a hard-on for HSR when they don't understand a single thing about the process. It's survivorship bias and dunning kruger. Hell, I know I'm barely scratching the surface of the issue at that. Yes, it works in places where the ground is flat, the population density is high and the country's gov can take land without paying for it. One of those applies decently to a decent portion to the US, but then population density there is extremely low. Then, eminent domain is an extremely touchy subject in the USA. I'm not a fan of the angle of, "It'll improve people's lives" as some blanket concept. Not only has Silicon Valley abused the hell of the concept, "Making the world a better place through xyz", if you can't point exactly how, it's not a real argument. Which seriously, you've just been keyword dropping, not giving hard facts of benefits. You saying that makes it seem you're assuming I want to harm the general American public. Yea, I want all American's lives to improve. I completely believe HSR will not achieve any betterment. I actually think it'll harm more. You saying, "it'll help people" doesn't make all the problems of HSR okay. How does HSR improve lives more? Faster commutes, to where? No one WANTS to commute. People don't want to commute 10 minutes to work. Now it's cool to wait at a station for 10-15 minutes to get on a train, for 20-40 minutes of the commute, to then walk/taxi to their work? Then do it all over again the other direction? Hopefully you don't want to hang out with your coworkers in whatever town you commute to. Commuter rails aren't 24/7. They operate only during rush hours. People want to work in-town as much as possible. That's a better investment strategy for a city to optimize. At that, low-income jobs should not require high commute times. That's what's worth tackling, not trying to increase that distance. There have been many programs trying to transpo low-income workers to farther distances. It has always locked those people into those jobs because of the time sink of those commutes. HSR isn't going to magically fix that. If you take Japan as an example, their HSR didn't fix commute times: https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/average-work-commute-time-japan/ https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/average-work-commu... Over time, jobs get displaced to more centralized areas. Better paying jobs that would be in smaller cities, get sent to other cities and congregate there. Just like you have Silicon Valley and New York. Industries like to mingle with each other closely if possible. Now, you force more people to travel farther than needed. Economic competition is just going to snowball it more. If HSR is going to give us Japanese 1 hour plus commute times, no. Just plain no. It defeats the whole damn purpose. Also, the fed doesn't just "print" money. That's a youtube cartoon understanding of how the financial system works. It's covered by bonds. Essentially loans with a few extra steps. This creates debt, which yes, is a problem. But this isn't "money printer go brrr". Amtrak is pretty much nationalized and is a giant clusterfuck. Nationalize all the things isn't the best strategy. And yes, this topic peeves me. It's a Haliburton like scheme for certain firms to make a ton of money off of taxpayers in the disguise of, "It's all about helping the poor people. If you hate HSR, you hate poor people." No.

lumost 6y ago

building an isolated rail line is a horrendous investment. Dense urban planning that reduces the need for individual car ownership is a boon to productivity. What are the costs to the local community for car ownership, gas, insurance, accidents, pollution and parking?