According to TIME magazine, rail travel costs “a third less energy per mile than auto or air travel, and a nationwide system could reduce oil use by 125 million bbl. a year. In addition, high-speed rail represents the kind of long-term infrastructure investment that will pay back for decades” http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1957575,00.html#ixzz1Cpq4stkO
Also, High Speed Rail:
Pays for itself by significantly reducing our $700 billion a year oil purchase trade deficit
Offers a convenient, comfortable way to travel without hassles or delays
A major step toward solving global warming by reducing our oil consumption and emissions
Drastically reduces our oil addiction and lowers our risk from the coming peak oil crisis
Lowers our dependence on costly military operations securing oil flow around the world
Lowers our national security risk, and ends wars for oil
Freedom from oil - Powered by clean electricity from renewable energy sources: wind, solar, geothermal, ocean/tidal
Safe, affordable, green transportation for everyone
Saves lives (43,000 Americans die each year in car accidents)
What is going to be the impact on our federal budget deficit? Evidently, the initial $8 BILLION will just be the tip of the iceberg.
From your own article:
Still, the initial round of $8 billion ? which Biden referred to as “seed money” during his remarks in Tampa ? is just a tiny percentage of what it would cost to significantly overhaul the country’s rail system. And there are concerns that by spreading the funds to so many different projects in so many different states, it won’t be possible to make a real difference in any one place, as Mark Reutter wrote in a new report for the Progressive Policy Institute. It doesn’t help that the one region that could most obviously benefit from truly high-speed rail ? the Boston-to-Washington corridor ? received a mere $112 million in funding, in part because building new track in the congested area would be prohibitively expensive and politically challenging.
What will the socioeconomic impact of having to borrow money from Communist China be for the cause of freedom and China’s oppressed citizens? Are you concerned at all about making interest payments to an oppressive government whose citizens live under tyranny?
In last year’s State of the Union address, President Obama promised to reduce the federal budget deficit. How close is he to delivering on that promise? How can he possibly deliver on both promises?
Cut the billions in subsidies for the oil companies, put it into rail infrastructure. Win-win. Make the mega-rich pay their fair share of taxes – a slight increase would cover the collapsing infrastructure of the USA to everyone’s benefit – another win-win. Fix the tax code so corporations can’t evade taxes and do the same – win-win. Rail would then pay for itself in the future and lower our dependence on oil – win, win, win.
$4 billion per year (current oil industry subsidies) will buy next to nothing for HSR. Your tax ideas have already be proven wrong, with facts, not assertions. No rail pays for itself now, in the highest-demand areas. Let’s think about what that means for expanding it into low-demand regions…not good.
So, CCC, does that mean if those things don’t happen (ending oil subsidies, taxing the rich, and corporate tax reform), you are against installing high speed rail?
I’ll tell you what. If oil subsidies go away, taxes increase on the rich (in spite of a Republican-controlled House of Representatives), and corporate taxes are increased (again, in spite of a Republican-controlled House of Representatives), I will support your plan, and when monkeys fly, it will all happen in quick succession.
Seriously, you must live on another planet if you think those things are going to happen. Was your head buried in the sand during the last election?
The car accident fatalities are actually down to 34,000 or so, still too high but about the same as in the mid fifties, in spite of a 16 fold increase in vehicle miles driven.
The quickest way to reduce oil consumption is to consume less through the PRICE mechanism. My brother is studying in England and pays $9.40 per Imperial gallon or $7.83 per US gallon. Those prices quickly make people buy sensibly sized cars without the 300 HP engines. A London taxi seats 7 and has a tiny Fiat or Perkins diesel engine and a 5 speed gearbox. Yet the interior is as spacious as a large US car or SUV.
Thanks for the info Docnik. I would be curious about the fatality stats – it doesn’t necessarily mean less serious accidents or less injuries. Medical progress in dealing with severe trauma means people often survive the kinds of things they used to die from even a few years ago. Less fatalities does not mean less horrible accidents, crippling injuries, permanent maiming. Of course, improved safety features of cars may also have indeed cut down on the percentage of injuries per crash, but that doesn’t mean less crashes. The real way to know would be to find the stats on accidents involving serious injuries over the same time period you describe. Anyway I think we can all agree the numbers as is are horrific and intolerable. From what I could find, for example, in this century there have been about 2.9 million people injured because of cars in the USA every year, and 10% of them are disabled. That’s 290,000 people disabled every year – what a huge toll in the quality of life in this country.
The injury rates have also dropped. Too many still? Sure. Has it improved greatly? By more than a factor of 10! Name one other safety area that has increased to this extent. Complaints only matter when attached to solutions, solutions that might actually work.
Good job fearmongering, CCC, but it looks like Docnick has corrected your overblown stats. The important thing to remember is that not everyone is a reactionary who makes lifestyle decisions based on fear. Taking risks is a part of life, and in my opinion, a risk-free or risk averse life wouldn’t be worth living.
How exactly has the idea of “if you make rich people pay more taxes, you’ll get more tax money” been proven wrong?
Are you suggesting the rich people will move? Where will they go? Presumably to a nation that doesn’t collect taxes, since they hate paying them. I can think of one they could try out, but I don’t think they’d like life in Somalia very much.
Where has it been proven that it’s a bad idea for Exxon to have to actually pay taxes instead of paying $0 in taxes AND getting a tax refund?
In fact, it HAS been proven that these tax ideas are good, because they were implemented by FDR during the Depression, and we emerged from that with decades of unprecedented national prosperity that declined only when those taxes were drastically cut.
You want national prosperity? Don’t let mega-rich people stockpile even more wealth. Use the tax code to force them to invest in business and manufacturing rather than piling it up in a vault somewhere.
Shadow, let’s see how far you get here in challenging people’s precious fantasies about taxes and prosperity. Essentially people have been propagandized 24/7 with the reversal of reality (not just FOX, either – pretty much the false premise you expose is promoted all over).
Don’t be under the misapprehension that I’m on your side about everything. To be honest, I find a good number of your posts to be borderline trolling, as this is site populated by and meant for car enthusiasts. For you to come on here with the screen name that you exhibit is rude at best, and is right on the line between acceptable and moderation-worthy flamebait. Writing sentences like “people have been propagandized 24/7” is also borderline flamebait, even if you believe it to be true. And I’ll point out that if people have indeed been propagandized by something, running up to them and essentially screaming “Idiot! You’re dumb! You listen to the wrong morons and that makes you stupid too!” is not the way to change their minds.
However, you happen to be factually correct regarding the taxation issue, and I do try to be fair, which is why I asked them to explain to us how the tax policies that led us to our country’s golden age of prosperity are a bad idea.
Are you suggesting the rich people will move? Where will they go? Presumably to a nation that doesn’t collect taxes, since they hate paying them. I can think of one they could try out, but I don’t think they’d like life in Somalia very much.
Ideally, they’d all move to the French riviera and record epic double-albums…
Taking my point, the rich can and do move to avoid taxes (although generally it’s easier to just move the money around). Or they create foundations, trusts, or other tax dodges. That’s the “rich folks’” contingency plan for high taxation; the “poor folks’” plan is just under-the-table work.
The “Laffer curve” can and does exist; it’s just not necessarily evident when one is one the “back side of the curve” or not.
Use the tax code to force them to invest in business and manufacturing rather than piling it up in a vault somewhere.
What, are you implying that the rich hide their money under the mattress? That’s SO 19th century! Everyone I know with an accumulation of wealth either puts it in stock or bonds Even money put into a bank account is subsequently loaned out, with the intent of that money being utilized to earn more money.
Trains accidents still happen.Planes crash and boats sink. I know per mile traveled they are safer, but people still die or get injured.
I know most people want Utopia. Sorry, its not going to happen. I’m sure the Romans at the height of their civilization never imagined total collapse and take over .Dream on CCC
You keep using the phrase “war for oil.” What wars have we fought for oil, and what proof do you have that oil was the reason we fought any wars? Since this phrase is often used by the lunatic fringe, I anxiously await your proof we have fought ANY wars for oil.
You might say that the Iraq invasion was more about oil than the so-called “weapons of mass destruction” which were never found although Colin Powell very uncomfortably talked out of both corners of his mouth at the UN when he showed some derelict equipment that was used in the first Iraq war.
We had a discussion on this before and my version was that President Cheney (an ex-oilman) and his 2 helpers, Bush and Rumsfelt, thought to kill 3 birds with one stone. Bring down Saddam Husein, make the Iraqis pay for the war with oil, and get US oil concessions in Iraq. This was to be a short war with all Iraqis welcoming the US liberators.
As we now know, after the invasion, it all fell apart and it ended costing well over a trillon dollars to get the country where it is today. Which is not very far. Iraqi oil production still is not what is was before the invasion.
Right. We get very little oil from the middle east. We get most from Canada, ourselves and South America. So what oil is that war for? None for us, really.
Coming from the country where railways were invented, it is a source of shame that we have one high speed rail line. Yes, just the one. It is the one that Eurostar uses. Until it was built the Eurostar used to creep out of London on Victorian tracks at 20-30 m.p.h and only got to the top speed on the french side. We have fairly nebulous plans to ( maybe ) link London to Manchester ( possibly ).
Meanwhile, over the Channel the french have built a network of high speed rail links running at 180 mph - 200 mph. You can get from Paris to the south coast of france in 3-4 hours. Vive la difference!
