“Can Miami afford more rail?” asks the Miami Herald. “Or will it settle for buses?” That’s like asking if you can afford an IBM 700 mainframe computer from the 1950s or if you will settle for a MacBook Pro. Both buses and laptop computers are far less expensive than rails and mainframes, but the former are also far more flexible.
In 1972, Miami persuaded voters to put up the money to build a 50-mile heavy-rail system. With 80 percent of the cost paid for by the feds, they finally opened a 20-mile line in 1984, but then ran out of money having spent well over a billion dollars, far more than expected. Ridership was poor and people took to calling it a white elephant.
Memories grow dim, however, and in 2002 Miami convinced voters to approve another transit tax, supposedly to finish the system. Only a handful of miles were built, at the cost of close to another billion, before that effort ran out of steam as well.
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One person who gets it, even if Bovo and the Miami Herald do not, is Miami Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who wants to uses buses instead and pave the way for eventual use of driverless buses. “I’m more about the future,” he says; “I’m not about the past.” Yes, driverless vehicles are the future and trains (at least for passenger transport) are the past.
Meanwhile, an effort by Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee to fully fund New Starts in 2018 was defeated by the committee vote. This indicates that Republicans are supporting the administration’s proposal to stop funding of new projects that the Federal Transit Administration has not already agreed to fund. Thus, there may be no federal matching funds for Miami or other cities that want to build new rail lines, which will probably cool their ardor for such projects.
Using the 700 series IBM mainframe as an analogy is rather novel. For one the first generation 700/7000 series used vacuum tubed logics then it’s new incarnation used transistors. They were upgraded. Second the 700 remained in service for years after IBM introduced the 360 due to creeping errors in the 350 Operating system. the 7030 was the first transitorized computer, worked splendidly and continued to operate for NASA, the IRS, DOD, etc.
Worrying about the obsolescence of trains, reminds me of the episode of Mad Men where Don Draper stared into the fear his own obsolescence
https://media.wired.com/photos/59325f4326780e6c04d2b3e0/master/w_660,c_limit/madmen2.jpg
Rail isn’t obsolete, it just faces a hostile political environment. :$