Socialists “always run out of other people’s money,” said Margaret Thatcher. “It’s quite a characteristic of them.” Some of the best examples can be found in the field of passenger rail transportation.
California’s plan to pay for high-speed rail with revenues from sales of greenhouse gas cap & trade permits has hit a speed bump. The first sale, which was expected to bring in $150 million, only brought in $10 million. At that rate, it will be centuries, instead of the planned decades, before the line is built.
When Atlanta opened its streetcar line, it offered the service for free for a year. As soon as it began charging a dollar a ride, ridership dropped by nearly 50 percent. Now the state of Georgia is threatening to shut the line down because of inept management resulting from a lack of funds.
This medicine is made for a healthy grown up adult man. buy cheap viagra Both of these components work to ensure cialis in the usa you can look here a more potential erection in the man possibly. Physical issues lead to about 70% of cases; emotional condition leads to about 10-20%; and 10-20% has mixed physical and emotional issues. sildenafil cheapest viagra online for women Some individuals use it to have relief from pre-menstrual syndrome. Honolulu’s rail transit project is suffering such huge cost overruns that the board chair of the agency building it has resigned in disgrace. The Federal Transit Administration thinks that the project will cost twice the original projections and that it will be completed as much as five years late.
To save money, the agency building it is thinking of shortening the route. Since they started construction in the middle of nowhere and headed for downtown Honolulu, if they shorten the route it will go from nowhere to a football stadium, which means it would be used mainly on weekends.
The DC Metro rail has a multi-billion-dollar maintenance backlog, and the work it plans in the next year will do little more than slow the deterioration of the system. One solution that its managers should, but probably won’t, consider is converting it to buses.
DC’s rail system isn’t alone. The Chicago Transit Authority has a $22.4 billion backlog. Boston’s MBTA backlog is up to $7 billion. Nationwide, the FTA estimates that transit has an $86 billion backlog, and that’s probably low because few if any agencies are spending enough to keep their backlogs from getting worse.
And in the meantime, the Gotthard Base Tunnel opens. We’re pretty excited about it.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/as-it-happens_switzerland-celebrates-the-gotthard-tunnel/42194112
$86 billion for deferred maintenance.
If Obama’s $700+ billion stimulus money had been used for maintenance projects, we might be in good shape. All of the transit authorities should be screaming at the White House to find out where the stimulus dollars went. But they will simply ignore that fact and claim that the Republican Congress and the taxpayers shorted them and that’s why things don’t work.
I have had this discussion with the Yosemite park service and their plans for Yosemite valley which essentially seem to revolve around stopping crowding by keeping people out. Since the average car spends 5 hours or so in the valley pricing cheaper earlier in the day would work, then more expensive later in the day to avoid the “afternoon rush” when most of the traffic problems occur. They also stubbornly refused to add someone, even a a volunteer, to direct traffic past the Yosemite falls pedestrian walk way that is the major bottleneck in the afternoon. At the same time they have been taking out parking for day visitors in the valley they still give out free parking permits to employees who are allowed to park in special areas. All park employees I talked to were very upset at the idea they they should have to pay for parking! Maybe employees should get a rebate back in busy summer hours for not using their parking permit. Other ideas were to only allow a senior discount in the off season of spring winter and fall when the park is quiet. Also only allowing big RV’s in during these times and not in summer would help. Other ideas include buses with bike racks and space for day picnic gear coming from El Portel, etc.
So I agree with the Antiplanner on pricing and how this could alleviate the problem. The park service did not seem to be able to conceive of any of these ideas to alleviate the problem of to many cars.