The birth of high-speed rail
posted by Rob Anderson @ 9:51 PM
13 comments
District 5 Diary
Rob Anderson's commentary on San Francisco politics from District 5
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Previous Posts
- Report debunks Big Lie about Masonic and Fell
- Sharp drop in pedestrian injuries in SF
- Wiener's attack on initiative rights: The Video
- Vote no on the street bond in November
- The Grand Jury: still spineless but not entirely i...
- Supervisor Wiener: City Hall knows best
- "BART's Oakland Airport Connector too costly to stop"
- Comments lost
- High-speed rail: Pork for the Bay Area from the De...
- Governor Brown: Pull the plug on high-speed rail
13 Comments:
But wait - what would al Qaeda hijack and fly into buildings?
But wait - that would take all the fun out of sitting at SFO for hours whenever there's fog!
But wait - I like having to take off my shoes and having a device screen through my clothes!
But wait - I like being crammed into 3 square feet of seats for hours!
But wait - my therapist needs the money from my sessions on fear of flying!
But wait - I like it when my bags get lost by the airlines!
High-speed rail---and Amtrak---are easier targets than airplanes for terrorists, since providing security for hundreds of miles of track is impossible.
But you can't drive a train into a building.
Are you implying the terrorists would blow up a train just to kill the passengers?
SFO to LAX won't be slower via HSR than flying.
"Welcome back to planet Earth, Anon. That's what terrorists do---kill people. The 9/11 hijackers flew their planes into the World Trade Center not to destroy the planes but to kill as many people as possible."
So what you are saying is that the terrorists will attack HSR because there will be lots of people riding it? I thought your whole point was that nobody would ride it! Which is it?
Don't recall saying that "nobody would ride it." If it's like HSR in China, most of the cars will be half-full of people who can afford the ticket prices for the luxury system.
And with hundreds of miles of track, the system would be an easy target for terrorists.
And they'll kill a few hundred people, blow up one train, and cause many thousands of dollars in damage to the track.
Sounds pretty similar to 9/11 to me.
And every TGV I've ridden in France or Eurostar in Italy has been at capacity. "This isn't France", but we're a hell of a lot closer to being France than we are of being China. Ref: Burrito Justice.
I've lost my patience. It'd obvious that there are some people out there who are so fucking dumb that you'll never convince them of the truth.
Bob, you appear to be one of them. So the only thing left to do is snarl and spit at you. It's actually pretty satisfying. I encourage others to do the same.
Snarling and spitting is a last resort, Peachpit. First try to come to grips with the facts---especially the financial facts, aka "the truth"---underlying the high-speed rail boondoggle.
I got a job at Abir just so I could hock loogies in his coffee!
But wait - I can drive to OAK or SJC and fly when SFO is fogbound
But wait - you'll still have to take your shoes off for HSR
But wait - you'll still be crammed into a seat for hours, and you won't even end up in LA!
But wait - you'll probably develop a fear of HSR!
But wait - I never check bags on an intra-CA flight!
HSR is absolutely stupid - I can get from several airports in SoCal to several airports in NoCal every hour, for very little money, and little taxpayer subsidy. Or I can drive! In CA, it seems that HSR is a solution looking for a problem.
HSR in California is about the money and union jobs, not transportation. "Absolutely stupid" is absolutely right.
You'll appreciate Randal O'Toole on HSR.
and little taxpayer subsidy
except for the airports
and the tax breaks for the airlines
and the tax breaks for the oil companies
and the implicit subsidy on oil prices to pay for wars
and so on, and so on...
Post a Comment
<< Home