Most people who know me are wondering at this point if I have lost my mind. They know in the past I have supported rail. I still do but I support "high speed" rail not this stuff where the trains will only go 110 miles an hour.
If we were talking of building a system that the trains would travel 160MPH plus then I would support it. But a train that only travels 45 mph faster than the highway speed limit is not going to attract the kind of ridership that will be needed to make such a line economically viable. When add in the time of getting to the station waiting for the train then finally getting to your final destination I am not sure you will have saved any time.
We may reduce our carbon footprint but that is not going to be enough to fill the train. The service will have to either save us time or a great deal of money. At 110mph it is not going to save us the time and even if gas goes back to $4.00 it will not save us that much money.
If we are going to put money into a system then let us do it right and not half way. Some will say that we have to make the compromise and build this system then latter we can come back and up-grade. I think we all know that would not happen. If we can not afford to build it right then we should not build it at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment