Comments on: More Tales of Rail Failure

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 05:57:28 +0000

Cars are also a blight in National Parks. Oops. I mean a real disaster. Maybe only cars built before 1930 should be allowed in parks. It would be much better than the mess the federal government (in conjunction with Big Oil and Hospitality) has made of our "crown jewels." Would love the AP to address this issue. Until then, after next week in Glacier, find me in National Forest land where by and large, cars are not a blight like they are at places like Paradise or Giant Forest or Zion Canyon or the North Rim. No more cars in national parks!

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 05:35:44 +0000

I must agree with Andrew. Cars and their ilk are a blight on the urban land. I went to a brewery in Ballard, Washington recently, and my choices were to sit outside and look at a parking lot of U-Hauls and listen to a jackhammer or sit inside and look at kitschy pirate deco. Guess which one I chose.

However, in the interest of full disclosure, I drove to this blighted landscape. It took 10x less time than taking the bus. Don’t worry. I had a designated driver for the ride home.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 16:09:57 +0000

I am missing what you find blighting in that picture from the elevated rail structure.

It looks no worse than the auto oriented neighborhood in general, and the hideous architecture typical of suburban American roads. How does the elevated rail line make it any worse?

No one would ever mistake this line for St. Martin’s Station in Chestnut Hill Philadelphia, or Forest Hills Station in Queens, or Point of Rocks In Maryland but then, you’d probably oppose building a service with structures that looked like those as well.

Paris and Vienna both have elevated metro’s that most people consider quite beautiful.

By: Frank

Frank — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 04:41:30 +0000

CA is determined to bankrupt itself, if not by HSR, then by spending $24B to rip off water from Nor Cal. The Feds are in on this one, too, including Salazar the Sleeze.

By: C. P. Zilliacus

C. P. Zilliacus — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 22:15:25 +0000

To look at what aged bare portland cement-based concrete looks like, drive the Pennsylvania Turnpike sometime - especially the "original" mountain section of the Pike between Carlisle and the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Many of the ancient bridges have been replaced, but not all. Here is one from the Turnpike's Bedford (U.S. 220, Exit 146) interchange that probably dates from about the time that the highway opened in 1940.

By: LazyReader

LazyReader — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:03:56 +0000

Visual blight now is just the icing on the cake. Remember bare concrete doesn’t age very well. Especially in Hawaii where the humid tropical climate and year round sunshine turns concrete into a breeding ground for bacteria and algae.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Hawaii_State_Capitol%2C_Honolulu.jpg

By: LazyReader

LazyReader — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 12:29:28 +0000

It’s not just tunnels. Building high speed rail in California’s rough and tumble country will involve more than that. To keep it smooth and as uninterrupted as possible, they would have to build over 500 bridges and tunnels, overpasses and underpasses so to skip any auto traffic. What were they thinking when they have problems with just one.