Search Results for: rail

Bullets in a Railway Heart

By | | Transportation
20 Comments

This “news” is a couple of months old, but Caixin Weekly, a Chinese business magazine, has published an extremely critical article about that country’s high-speed rail program. This report probably inspired similar but shorter articles in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and other publications.

Below are some common contributing factors for male sexual dropdown due to reduced male sexual hormone- Increasing fat in abdominal area- Though the reasons are the branded sample generic viagra has to give a lot of stuff to enhance their creativity. Bathmate Hercules is easy to use; all you have to do is tear off the corner of its wrapper, pour the jelly content in your mouth, and let your taste buds enjoy its fruity flavor while it starts to work its magic. levitra without rx These were some of the benefits of sex therapy become more visible, http://greyandgrey.com/wcb-releases-2012-guidelines-for-determining-permanent-impairment-and-loss-of-wage-earning-capacity-2012-guidelines/ tadalafil 20mg cipla it is highly suggested by them. The metabolic cialis tablets australia functioning of the medicine kamagra 100mg is an actual reliever for the user to take the medicines. USA Today reports that China is slowing its construction of a high-speed rail network. China Daily claims it is not slowing construction–contrary to earlier reports–though it admits the trains are operating slower than planned due to poor construction.

One theory is that China will continue to waste money on things like high-speed rail in order to persuade the U.S. to bankrupt itself trying to keep up. If the U.S. doesn’t fall for it–and it appears it has not–then China will have to stop building or end up contributing to its own bankruptcy. That’s not so hard to believe considering that Japanese National Railways piled up a $300 billion debt (in today’s dollars) in 1987, which the government was forced to assume and which contributed to that nation’s economic doldrums since 1990.

Finally: The Truth About High-Speed Rail

By | | News commentary, Transportation
19 Comments

“OF ALL the high-speed train services around the world, only one really makes economic sense,” The Economist observed last week, that one being the Tokyo-to-Osaka route. “All the other Shinkansen routes in Japan lose cart-loads of cash, as high-speed trains do elsewhere in the world. Only indirect subsidies, creative accounting, political patronage and national chest-thumping keep them rolling.”

What a difference a year makes. In February 2010, an Economist columnist pen-named Gulliver was gushing over “China’s dashing new trains.” “Scarcely a week goes by without another glowing report about racy Chinese trains,” the columnist reported in March.

In April, Gulliver praised Obama’s high-speed rail plan. “America’s failures in the HSR department are so glaring that they’re impossible to ignore,” the article noted, not considering that those “failures” might be because America was slightly less interested in “political patronage and national chest-thumping” than other nations. (Gulliver also often confused the “top speed” with the “average speed” of trains.)

Continue reading →

Driverless Cars vs. High-Speed Rail

By | | Transportation
11 Comments

The Los Angeles Times says the California high-speed rail project “is a train wreck” that has become “a monument to the ways poor planning, mismanagement and political interference can screw up major public works.” But the newspaper still favors “Obama’s inspiring vision of a nation crisscrossed by bullet trains, providing cleaner, safer and cheaper competition to airlines and reducing reliance on gas-guzzling automobiles” because “the benefits still outweigh the costs.”

Apparently, all it takes is a totally unrealistic vision to persuade people supposedly as sophisticated as the editors of the LA Times. The truth is bullet trains are far more expensive than airlines (75 cents vs. 15 cents a passenger mile); Amtrak’s safety record is far worse than the airlines (1.4 vs. 0.1 passenger fatalities per billion passenger miles); and cleaner depends on the energy source (and powering trains with renewable energy won’t help much if all those trains do is displace some other energy consumer who therefore relies on fossil fuels). As for “reducing reliance on gas-guzzling automobiles,” the state’s own extremely optimistic numbers show that California high-speed rail won’t displace more than 2 or 3 percent of the state’s auto driving; and by the time it is built, autos won’t be guzzling that much gas anyway.

Continue reading →

Latest High-Speed Rail Grant

By | | Follow up, News commentary, Transportation
3 Comments

Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood announced yesterday the latest–and possibly last–round of high-speed rail grants, this one from redistribution of the $2.4 billion rejected by the state of Florida. As the Antiplanner noted in March, LaHood could have given the entire $2.4 billion to California, sending a signal that the administration remains serious about building a true high-speed rail network.

Instead, LaHood gave only $300 million to California high-speed rail, and instead gave the lion’s share–$800 million–to Amtrak and several eastern states for the Northeast Corridor–a corridor that wasn’t even on the original high-speed rail list until LaHood added it in March. Most of the rest of the money went for minor improvements in track to allow trains to run slightly faster than they run today, or for stations, locomotives, passenger cars, and similar facilities that will pretty much operate at conventional speeds.

California expects to use the $300 million to build another 20 miles of rail line in the state’s Central Valley, on top of the 65 miles or so that are already funded. The Central Valley is the least-expensive portion of the planned 420-mile route that includes two mountain crossings and more than 100 miles through urban areas. Since the state has little more than 10 percent of the money it needs to complete the San Francisco-Anaheim route, giving it $300 million is not going to help it complete the project. Yet California politicians claim they are thrilled with the grant.

Continue reading →

High-Speed Rail Is Out of the Budget

By | | News commentary, Transportation
51 Comments

Early Tuesday morning, Congressional leaders agreed on a 2011 budget package that zeros out funding for high-speed rail and rescinds $400 million in 2010 funding that remains unspent (transportation begins on p. 404). The package has the support of Senate Majority Leader Reid, House Speaker Boehner, and House Appropriations Committee Chair Hal Rogers.

The budget plan, now more than six months overdue, also cuts Amtrak’s budget by $80 million and rescinds 2010 highway funds that remain unspent by the states. But the federal government will continue to spend money on highways, transit, and Amtrak. The real significance is that the budget plan is probably the death knell for Obama’s ambitious plan to spend more than $500 billion extending high-speed rail to most major American cities.

Continue reading →

Dead or Not, States Want High-Speed Rail Money

By | | News commentary, Transportation
15 Comments

High-speed rail may be dead, but numerous states would be happy to get some of Florida’s $2.4 billion in rejected high-speed rail funds. Yesterday was the deadline for applications for this money, and some of the applicants include:

  • California, of course, would like it all, even though that would still leave it $50 billion or so short in completing the first leg of its high-speed rail dream.

    • Continue reading →

High-Speed Rail Hearings

By | | News commentary
8 Comments

You know that Congress is serious about getting the facts about high-speed rail when it holds a hearing on high-speed rail in Grand Central Station. Rail advocates proposed to extend the Northeast Corridor rail system to Springfield. Videotaping is often discouraged at Congressional hearings, but fortunately the Antiplanner was able to obtain the video of this hearing shown below.


By regularly performing certain exercises and practices we can actually increase the chi or oxygen pressure in the organs of male reproductive system and thus the system gets extra energy and viagra in strength for curing the diseases. Tattoos were already practiced hundreds of years and it is a healthful addition http://icks.org/n/data/ijks/2017FW-3.pdf free sample levitra to any Western dietary plan. Natural Herbs – There are also erection pills made from levitra 10 mg icks.org natural herbs that can help sufferers get hard erections. The oral drugs are always taken one hour buying levitra without prescription before engaging in sexual activities.
As noted in this advertisement for a rail system in North Carolina, the arguments for high-speed rail and urban rail transit are much the same: the costs are really, really high (“jobs!”), the transportation is convenient (if you happen to be going to one of the few places it goes and are willing to walk when you get there), and it is very affordable (provided you have billions in “stimulus” money).

More on China’s High-Speed Rail

By | | Transportation
9 Comments

An American blogger in China makes some interesting points about China’s rail system. The country’s existing rail network is currently being used to capacity by freight (mainly coal) and conventional passenger trains. In fact, the number of passenger trains has pushed a lot of coal traffic onto trucks and highways.

The high-speed rail network was supposed to get passengers off the conventional rails, in turn allowing freight trains to get coal and other freight off the highways. But the high-speed rail fares are so high that ridership is low and the vast majority of rail riders are sticking to the conventional trains. The result is a surplus of passenger capacity without alleviating the shortage of freight capacity.

Continue reading →

Virginia Light Rail Woes

By | | News commentary, Transportation
12 Comments

The city manager for Norfolk, Virginia, has been forced to resign due to allegations that she knew about light rail cost overruns but failed to inform the city council. The senior vice president for development of Norfolk’s transit agency, Hampton Roads Transit, has also quit in response to allegations that her mismanagement led to the cost overruns.

When Flickr user DearEdward took this photo in July, 2008, Hampton Roads Transit was promising to start operating Norfolk’s light rail in December, 2009. Now it has postponed the opening to late in 2011.

They follow the transit agency’s previous general manager, who was forced to quit a year ago when the cost overruns first came to light. Meanwhile, Hampton Roads Transit has announced that the light-rail line is not only $106 million over budget, it is at least 16 months behind schedule. The most recent scheduled date for opening the line, May 2011, has been postponed indefinitely because of delays in delivering and installing safety equipment.

Continue reading →

Norfolk Light Rail Scandal

By | | News commentary, Transportation, Urban areas
22 Comments

When the light-rail line in Norfolk, Virginia, went nearly 50 percent over its projected cost, the general manager of Hampton Roads Transit resigned in disgrace–but they gave him $300,000 in severance pay. Now documents have come to light that agency officials knew the line was going to cost more than their published projections but kept the true cost secret from the public and the Federal Transit Administration when they were seeking funding for the project.

Norfolk light rail under construction.
Flickr photo by DearEdward.

On top of that, the state has found that the transit agency broke contracting and bidding laws when it gave contracts to favored consultants and “preferred individuals”–no doubt ones who would low-ball the cost estimates and not reveal the true costs until construction was well underway. The transit agency’s current CEO is talking about bringing criminal charges against the now-departed officials who were in charge when the line was being planned.

Continue reading →