Joe Biden botched his big announcement about rail investment on Friday, declaring that the federal government would spend “over a billion, three hundred million, trillion, three hundred million dollars.”
The president was in Las Vegas, unveiling $8.2 billion in new federal funding for 10 major passenger rail projects across the country. [emphasis, links added]
Among them is a new line from the Nevada city to Los Angeles, which when completed – potentially as soon as 2028 – can carry over 11 million passengers a year, powered entirely by renewable energy.
Biden mocked his predecessor for repeatedly promising Infrastructure Week, but failing to deliver. …
But he stumbled over the cost of the project, tripping over the millions and billions in his speech.
He also repeated his oft-told story about how frequently he traveled on Amtrak.
BIDEN: "Over a billion three hundred million trillion three hundred million dollars!" pic.twitter.com/4pVbAPrKef
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 8, 2023
Read more at Daily Mail
Biden Senile and unworthy of the Oval Office and Democrat/Globalists
Supposedly another one of his boondoggles is here in Colorado where the state government just announced that we are receiving some hundreds of thousands of dollars (don’t remember the exact amount) for a proposed high-speed light rail line extending from Fort Collins in the north (about 30 miles from Wyoming border) to Pueblo which is south of Colorado Springs (about 150 miles or so). I expect it will be another boondoggle like the high-speed train to nowhere in California.
I lived in CoSpgs for a decade in the 90s and remember the numerous attempts to start some sort of commuter service from COS to DEN (airports) and other such services to the DTC and downtown Denver, but none developed enough potential ridership and each ended pretty quickly. Now the egg-heads think there is a viable commuter demographic from Pueblo up to Ft Collins, which is more nonsense. I-25 is still the best route, now that the freeway has been expanded between the Springs and Denver; what are riders supposed to do for local travel once they step off the train, oh yeah – pay another 25-30 bucks for each Uber/Lyft/etc ride to each destination. It’s nuts.
Alas, we have our ‘never to be completed’ HSR, and possibly the Vegas train. At least the Vegas train has the prospect of tens of thousands of riders.
My daughter used to live in the Springs when she had twin boy and girl in 2000. At the time I lived in Ft Collins and would drive down there most weekends to bring a meal and spend time with her and her husband and the babies. Would seem like a possible use of the train except for bringing food and as you say then getting somehow to their home (before Uber…). Agree with you that few people would take it. There was a service called Bustang that was a bus service from Ft Collins to downtown Denver but again few took advantage since once you get to downtown you then have to take one or more buses to get to your final destination. But the liberals are always sure it’s going to be a big hit!
Road bed for high speed rail? That’s going to be fun. As straight as possible, and level.
In the early 1970’s I-40 was replacing Hwy 66. The engineering company that was hauling in fill material for the roadbed north of Essex, CA, had electronic readout weigh scales. They were being paid by the ton. Loaded Euclid ‘belly-dumps’ crossed the scales at 103 tons (+/-), one every 75 seconds throughout a 16 hour workday. The Weighmaster was a California State employee. I don’t know how many yards to the gallon those machines managed, but in todays lingo, what a lot of carbon dioxide.
Trying to parallel I-15 will probably generate more CO2 than the train will ever save.
(Then there’s the chap who drove up to Vegas in a $6,000 Buick, and came home in a $40,000 Greyhound.) (It’s an old joke, but then again, so am I)
Liberals are incapable of learning from mistakes if doing so undermines their agenda. The California “bullet train to no where” is one such mistake. Not as well know was the project to extend the Monorail in Seattle. Seattle residence had to pay more than an extra $100 a year licensing for each car for the Monorail project. This tripled the typical cost of licensing. The Monorail project had to be abandon because the cost was too high.
Considering our recent history, we would more likely be looking at $8.2 billion for each of ten projects rather than $8.2 billion for all ten. There is also a high risk that after the money was spent the projects wouldn’t be completed.