Quote:
Originally Posted by djplong
Yes. A Tampa-Orlando system is a boondoggle. But to keep my metaphor going, so is a Billings-Helena highway system.
Tampa-Orlando was a START. A smaller project so that people could see what was possible.
Pays for itself? It doesn't and neither do highways.
We spend $50B/year on surface transportation in this country and the Trust Fund only collects $30B/year. This "highways pay for themselves" is a *MYTH*. If we treated our highways the way we treated our rail system, we would be closing highways because of the cost of maintenance.
Now, on top of that, you have studies showing that it would have had operational profits. (This is what happens when you run frequent service - more than once a day - look at the Boston-Portland 'Downeaster' for an example of constantly exceeding ridership esitmates)
Now, once again, we find ourselves staring at $4 gas and beyond. It would be nice to have options. I've ridden the rails in Europe and was VERY pleasantly surprised.
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We have the road systems now though, and it's cheaper just to maintain them, which we have to do anyway. The vast majority of these roads are not overtaxed so travel is fluid on them.
A look at increased bus service for passengers is a far more reasonable and flexible approach for a mass transit alternative to private cars if we really were determined to increase mass transit, and it would use existing infrastructure.
So let some entrepreneur develop that idea if he thinks it's a service that people are pining for. That's the way this country should operate; to see an opportunity and exploit it.