Talk about rotten infrastructure...
It is widely acknowledged that the most energy-efficient way to move a lot of people from point A to point B is by rail. Same goes for freight. Yet over the past half century the U.S. has made an art of dissing rail transit beyond a few major metro areas. Try taking a train from Chicago to Houston, Miami to Minneapolis. Fergeddaboudit.
Sure, there's some billions of bucks in the "stimulus plan" for high speed rail, but it's known that'll not get much beyond planning and engineering stage once the dough's spread across the nation. Meanwhile, what about our current rail system? Sit down, because railroads need a bailout that would only be recognized herertofore by "too-big-to-fail" get-richer schemes like Citicorp, Bear Stearns and AIG.
A new study by the Federal Transit Administration says $50 billion is needed for existing rail systems. And that's just in a few select metro areas: Chicago, Boston, New York, New Jersey, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington. Please note each of these areaa is heavily Demoxcratic so the Repubs are pissed off already. Only Dems apparently think mass transit is not a communist plot. How pathetic is this? Los Angeles, once the smog-queen of the western world (now replaced by Houston), and the second largest metro in the nation doesn't even have enough rail transit to need help.
Some folks, I reckon, don't cotton to trains in oil and coal country, you might notice. Houston? Denver? Dallas? Remember how the governor of Louisiana made fun of high speed rail that would take people to Disneyland? Drive, if you're a real American! It's apparently considered un-American to have more than one person per vehicle during commutes in some parts of the good ole US of A. Three hundred people on a single train? Exxon wouldn't like that. Woudl Texas really secede if the rest of the country tried to bring high-speed trains into their country? state?
Hell, this train thing is gettin' outta hand. Pretty soon we'll be spending as much on trains as we do on bombs or jet fighters or hamburgers and diet pills. IF we did buy all those new trains and new tracks wouldn't that destroy the Interstate system that is the America we've come to know and expect? [poll id="126"]