Re: RE: Re: Lost your home? Car? Everything? Thank a bicyclist and the California road diet.

On 1/11/2025 3:52 PM, cyclintom wrote:

On Sat Jan 11 14:41:45 2025 Catrike Ryder  wrote:

On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 12:50:17 -0500, Frank Krygowski
<frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>

On 1/10/2025 8:56 PM, AMuzi wrote:

On 1/10/2025 5:52 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 1/10/2025 4:38 PM, AMuzi wrote:

On 1/10/2025 3:31 PM, pothead wrote:

On 2025-01-10, Frank Krygowski <frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

On 1/9/2025 9:05 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

>
>
... the other high speed rail projects didn't do much
better on controlling planning, construction and maintenance costs:
>
"Case Study V: California High-Speed Rail"
<https://uta.pressbooks.pub/oertgreentransport/chapter/ chapter-7-
case-study-v-california-high-speed-rail/>
<https://uta.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/ sites/131/2022/09/Tbl3-
e1664395162274.png>
>
I haven't checked, but methinks that a large percentage of the time
and money are being used to fund endless litigation:
"High Speed Rail Litigation"
<https://www.planetizen.com/tag/high-speed-rail- litigation>

>
I'm wondering how other countries have done this. We rode the TGV in
France. It was very impressive. I've talked to folks who used Japan's
high speed rail and were very impressed.
>

>
I've rode the TGV and it was quite impressive. The rail system in
Europe
is so far superior to the antiquated crap we have here in US it's
not even
in the same league.
>

I have no opinion but there are societal differences:
>
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/vehicles-per-capita-by- country/
>
which present a chicken-egg problem.

>
Interesting data. I see that France is really not far behind the U.S.
in cars-per-capita. I had wondered if they had far lower car ownership
and were thus more amenable to tax dollars going to rail, but that
doesn't seem to be the case.
>
Anyway, other countries are doing rail pretty well. It's sort of a
shame we can't. I'm pretty much forced to do a lot of freeway driving
these days. I'd prefer a choice.
>

>
It's complex.
>
As with the California fiasco, every mayor and county board chairman
wants a station in exchange for right of way. Add too many stations and
you have a "low speed rail' system.
>
For more modest projects, the past 30 years or so most commuting for
work is suburb to suburb, not outlying areas to city center.? There's
still plenty of both in our large cities, but taxing everyone for a very
limited rail path is a hard sell.
>
City to city like Shinkansen or TGV is possible and Bright Line seems to
have done that, but long term operational solvency is still up in the air.
>
https://www.wftv.com/news/local/brightline-posts-multimillion-dollar-
loss-profits-2023-read-why/7FD2AR2FBRDCBIC6I3XCNGDMOY/
>
So far no passenger rail in USA operates at a profit, most are deep in
the red for operations, and the capital costs (these are large numbers!)
have negative ROI.

>
ISTM that roads and highways don't operate at a "profit." With only the
rarest exceptions They are paid for entirely by tax dollars. I'm not
finding anything on private freeways, probably because they are not
economically viable. (Hwy 91 in CA seems to be a unique exception with
contentious results; and from what I can tell, the company that runs -
or ran? - it didn't have to pay for right-of-way acquisition or
construction.)
>
So the U.S. subsidizes road transport. Other countries do that, of
course, but they also subsidize rail transport. They don't expect it to
make a profit any more than we expect our freeways to make a profit.

>
The U S government subsidizes the transportation facilities that the
people prefer to use. Long distance passenger rail does not seem to be
one of them. It shrank because people didn't use it, unlike bicycle
trails and paths that are multiplying in leaps and bounds.

    There used top be the Shasta Dayolight that went from Oakland I believe to Seattle. That was a very profitable Northern Pacific route. You could sit in the lounge car which had a raised plastic top with totaol visibility through the heavily forested route to Seattle. That was MUCH more satisfying than getting on and off of a commrecial airline which at the time was DC5's or Constellations. I would gladly take that anytime. But all my Seattle side of the family are long gone and so are my Air Force friends.

There used to be lots of interesting things which no longer work in our modern world and current economics.
I used to take the Milwaukee Road passenger service to Chicago, 100 miles, five bucks (gasoline was 25c at the time) straight into Union Station in the south Loop.
Inflation calculator says NPV is $50.08
But pressures on the rail industry became severe around 1970 and everything changed.  Modern (surviving) rail systems are very different now and passenger rail is mostly dead except for publicly subsidized systems as they are not, and cannot be, profitable today.
This is not good, nor bad. It just is.
--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971