High Speed Rail (Boston to... Texas?)

The following is my best case scenario for what can happen to this money. I am interested in what other people think, but from my minimally informed perspective, and NEC focused goals.

Give the money to Mass to make high speed rail from Boston to Springfield. The state has bought tracks and wants to upgrade the worcester line anyway. do the upgrades make a high speed bypass that stops boston, worcester, springfield. Then money is already going tot he Springfield New Haven Corridor, begin prioritizing that. then have it plug into existing acela in new haven.

I think this is best for Mass, and the quickest for development. as much as a pain that mass development is, it will be easier than dealing with the connecticut coast yachters, as well as open new rail service.

Thoughts?

Also, california has enough that they are messing with and can't get out of their way. give it to NEC. lets make a profitable line.
 
^^ It would be easier to start by paying Amtrak to run 2 trains a day through the inland route.

And california needs all the money they can get....and unlike every other state, voters set aside 10b in matching funds. So $1b for cali means $2b in construction money.
 
I suspect the money would get largely redistributed to California. That said, Florida politics just got very ugly and a lot of people are not taking this news lying down. Senator Bill Nelson has already stated that lawyers are looking into the viability of moving this project forward without the approval of the Florida governor. Ray LaHood is holding the money, for now.

Stay tuned.
 
Give the money to us. Fuck you Florida, we'll build a high-speed N-S rail link.
 
DominusNovus said:
Why not just... not spend the $2 billion?
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At this point Obama could pick up the "pledge to america" say "I love it, lets do every item in here" and the republicans would be jumping over themselves to tell us why the pledge is the worst thing to ever happen to america.


Also, local florida news paints an interesting pictures. With the exception of some crazy tea party people (look at that guy, hes like out of a movie), everybody thinks the idea to cancel the project is terrible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOFBWAzYx1E
 
The people of Florida must be real proud of who they elected governor
On March 19, 1997, investigators from the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services served search warrants at Columbia/HCA facilities in El Paso and on dozens of doctors with suspected ties to the company.[18]

Following the raids, the Columbia/HCA board of directors forced Scott to resign as Chairman and CEO.[19] He was paid $9.88 million in a settlement. He also left owning 10 million shares of stock worth over $350 million.[20][21][22]

In 1999, Columbia/HCA changed its name back to HCA, Inc.

In settlements reached in 2000 and 2002, Columbia/HCA plead guilty to 14 felonies and agreed to a $600+ million fine in the largest fraud settlement in US history. Columbia/HCA admitted systematically overcharging the government by claiming marketing costs as reimbursable, by striking illegal deals with home care agencies, and by filing false data about use of hospital space. They also admitted fraudulently billing Medicare and other health programs by inflating the seriousness of diagnoses and to giving doctors partnerships in company hospitals as a kickback for the doctors referring patients to HCA. They filed false cost reports, fraudulently billing Medicare for home health care workers, and paid kickbacks in the sale of home health agencies and to doctors to refer patients. In addition, they gave doctors "loans" never intending to be repaid, free rent, free office furniture, and free drugs from hospital pharmacies.[3][4][5][6][7]

In late 2002, HCA agreed to pay the U.S. government $631 million, plus interest, and pay $17.5 million to state Medicaid agencies, in addition to $250 million paid up to that point to resolve outstanding Medicare expense claims.[23] In all, civil law suits cost HCA more than $2 billion to settle, by far the largest fraud settlement in US history.[24]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott
 
The project might still go through. LaHood said he wouldn't reassign the money to another state until the Orlando/Tampa mayors, as well as Mica can convince Scott to change his mind.

It's absurd that he didn't even give the private industry a chance to step in and fill the $300m left. There were about 7 parties interested.
 
I'll note that neither one of those two responses answered the fundamental question of why not just not spend the money. We don't have the money to spend on this, either at the state level or federal level.
 
DominusNovus said:
I'll note that neither one of those two responses answered the fundamental question of why not just not spend the money. We don't have the money to spend on this, either at the state level or federal level.
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I don't know, why do we spend any money at all? We don't have money to spend on repairing potholes either.
 
DominusNovus said:
I'll note that neither one of those two responses answered the fundamental question of why not just not spend the money. We don't have the money to spend on this, either at the state level or federal level.
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We have enough money to give the Pentagon $550 billion for 2012. NOT including war costs.

A lack of money isnt the issue here.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
I don't know, why do we spend any money at all? We don't have money to spend on repairing potholes either.
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A fallacious comparison. Maintaining existing infrastructure is completely different than investing in new infrastructure. Further, maintaining roads is a generally municipal affair, while this is a federal affair. The scope is completely different. As it stands now, we do pretty well without a high speed rail line in Florida.

jass said:
We have enough money to give the Pentagon $550 billion for 2012. NOT including war costs.

A lack of money isnt the issue here.
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It actually is. Is spending money anywhere an argument for spending it everywhere? The federal government is gravely in debt and cuts need to be made everywhere, from defense to social security to every other 'third rail' item on the budget.

The fact of the matter is that Florida certainly has little to no need for a high speed rail system. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the United States has little to no need for such a system. It would almost certainly become a huge black hole of money, as prices would have to be so low as to no recoup costs or ridership would be too low to recoup costs.
 
HSR is a boondoggle just about everywhere in the United States outside of the North East Corridor. You should be grateful that enough state governors, in states where rail isn't realistically viable, are realizing that the projects are wastes of money which will only saddle their states with maintenance debt later on. The HSR money should either be reallocated to the NEC, the only place it wouldn't be wasteful, OR NOT SPENT AT ALL.
 
I think it makes a lot of sense in CA if done right. It would also definitely work on the cascades line too.
 
Repeat after me: The national debt is not a legitimate issue. It's a red hearing tossed about by the party out of power, though much louder by the Republicans. I'd say why not spend the money? It's not going to bring any long-term harm, and can even increase tax revenues through a stimulus effect.
 
DominusNovus said:
It actually is. Is spending money anywhere an argument for spending it everywhere? The federal government is gravely in debt and cuts need to be made everywhere, from defense to social security to every other 'third rail' item on the budget.

The fact of the matter is that Florida certainly has little to no need for a high speed rail system. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the United States has little to no need for such a system. It would almost certainly become a huge black hole of money, as prices would have to be so low as to no recoup costs or ridership would be too low to recoup costs.
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Bullshit. If the feds were actually gravely in debt interest rates for treasury bonds would have went up, but no, they're remaining at rock-bottom rates. Investors are feeling very secure buying US debt.

Now yeah, I agree Florida has little use for a HSR system, I would rather have the money reassigned to California or Connecticut (the weakest link in the NEC)
 
Use the money for eminent domain and make the NEC straight as an arrow between major cities. Then buy some equipment for 250 MPH. :cool:
 
I'm really not complaining about Tea Party governors rejecting lines where they made less sense than the NEC either.

Though I think there is some room for growth elsewhere. Forget the already designated corridors (beyond CA and Cascades, which I think are also feasible). The Midwest is empty and flat compared to the NEC and the need to fly to Chicago (vs. easy rail or bus trips within the Northeast) has always annoyed me. I'm going to assume East Coast to Chicago is a huge market and that a lot of people share my opinion. A true bullet train on a relatively easily obtained arrow-straight ROW could be competitive on a Chicago-NY-(Boston?) route. From Chicago, it could branch to St. Louis (one of Amtrak's busiest corridors is actually Chicago-StL) and if Wisconsin ever gets its political act together, to Minneapolis.

There, that's all we need to be truly high speed. NEC, NY to Chicago and maybe later the Midwestern Y, LA-SF, and Cascades.
 
I also think HSR to regional cities could be very popular and connect them like never before. HSR from Boston to Providence would down right forge the two cities together. Also another track up to Southern NH. And have them be express routes. Even at modest HSR speeds say 150 mph Providence is 39 miles away. Thats 15.6 minutes. So speed up, slow down, get on off the train thats 30 minutes door to door. At 220 mph probably a tad over 20 minutes. I think TX's big cities could benefit from being linked via HSR as well. Maybe even throw in New Orleans.
 
Re: regional HSR, wouldn't fares be too high for daily commuters? And if that market isn't going to bite, then what market exists?
 
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