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It’s okay guys. It’s just money. And we can always print more.
The Biden administration announced $3 billion in funding Tuesday for the Brightline West rail project, covering a quarter of the cost for a high-speed rail line planned to run from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.
“This historic high-speed rail project will be a game changer for Nevada’s tourism economy and transportation,” Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) said in a statement.
Anyone who really wants to travel from LA to Vegas can easily fly there or drive there.
And do.
Advocates hope the project can better connect Las Vegas to California with cheaper transportation, relieve traffic and cut emissions. About 16 million people drive from Las Vegas toward Southern California on Interstate 15 every year through the Mojave Desert.
16 million people. Not to mention the people flying. How many more do they expect to come if there’s a train?
The Brightline West project is planned to run from a new station near the Las Vegas Strip to Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., where it would link with Los Angeles’s existing regional rail system. The trip would take just under 3 hours.
Ah, that widely utilized rail system. It takes four hours to drive from LA to Vegas, and a little over an hour to fly there.
We’re spending $3 billion to cut driving time by a fourth and for a train that’s three times slower than flying.
It is scheduled to be constructed by 2027, just in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
President Biden will be in Las Vegas on Friday, where he will likely announce the project.
California’s other grand rail project, the high-speed-rail-to-nowhere, was supposed to link up 800 miles of the state and be done by 2020.
Nothing has been built yet, though the budget has ballooned to infinity, and the completion date has been moved forward to ‘who the hell knows’.
High-speed rail isn’t crazy. In some places and scenarios, e.g. the Northeast, it actually makes sense. Even California’s high-speed rail proposal could have been pulled off if we had today’s technology in 1955. Unfortunately, we’re far too corrupt and inept to actually build any of these things. So it’s just money going into the pockets of politically connected special interests.
Communists are aways big into rail transportation. That, and large apartment buildings.
Large apt. blocks for the proles with elevators that are always breaking down. That’s the commie utopia.
The gamblers express. It’s somewhat sardonically humorous to see all the math-challenged gamblers taking bus tours to the casinos to hand over their money.
Yeah, those innumerate dumbasses always crack me up, especially the ones who put basket fulls of silver dollars into slot machines. Derp.
lol, thanks Jeff 🙂
That’s exactly the image that I had in my mind, the ones stuffing moola into the slot machines 🙂
I used to see old ladies, often Asian military wives, feeding those old timey one armed bandits, one silver dollar after another. None of them looked happy and I never saw one win. That was back in 1993 or so.
I haven’t been to Vegas in 14 years but when I was there in 2009 0r 2010, the slot machines were computer games with animation, like the Nintendo and whatever other brands of home games there are that kids and adults who haven’t grown up play. The games weren’t over in seconds like the one armed bandits, they lasted awhile. It’s a clever idea because people enjoy playing them so the number of customers who do dwarfs the numbers of the morons who used those bandit ones back in the day.
And the nickel slots make the casinos the most money! They probably raised the price to a dime under Bidenflation, though. That’s part of the genius of those video game slots. People don’t care when they lose nickels and I doubt they care about losing dimes, either, but that chump change adds up for the casinos, like that tenth of a cent per gallon gas stations burn you for adds up – for them.
I have a friend who lives in the west San Fernando Valley. He’s married with a couple of school age kids. His family has relatives in the SF Bay area and they go up several times a year. I asked him if they’d take the high-speed train if it was available.
He said given where they live they’d either have to get a friend to drive them to the light rail station or take a cab. Then they’d have to take the light rail to connect with the high speed train and when they got to SF they’d again have to take a cab or get picked up as their relatives don’t live close to the station.
So even with lower fares for the kids that’s a total of eight light rail tickets, eight train tickets, and they’d either have to impose on their relatives for use of a car or rent one. The trip would take about four hours each way.
Or they can drive, it takes about three hours more, and they’d have their own car available. It would make no financial sense to take the train.
I love trains but the main benefit of the CA project is that Dianne Feinstein’s husband’s company scored a billion dollar contract from it.
The seats are reserved for Democrats.
Republicans are expected to be outside, pushing.
Zero demand. By the time you factor in driving to the train station, checking in, checking your baggage and queuing up to board, it will actually take LONGER to ride the train. Another stupid solution to a stupid problem that doesn’t exist.
But I thought Las Vegas was supposed to be an ecological nightmare, with huge, wasteful water and electricity usage, and a manifestation of everything that the left claims to hate about America (except Cher).
Bidens Train Wreck a accident waiting to happen and Biden the Blunder is the Engineer
$3B won’t pay for the environmental studies and CA permits, not to mention NE studied, don’t want to harm any native scorpions, all so Mom and Dad can drop the kids collage funds in the $5 slots.
SQUANDERING AMERICA – No one does it better than Biden,
CA is a state with millions living in poverty and millions of illegals employed. There’s a housing crisis here and DEMS want to squander money on a worthless choo-choo train!
And 28% of the population is homeless, crime is at an all time high and close to a million people have fled the state. I bet none of them left by train.
What’s almost amusing is that on CBS News Los Angeles last night, they were actually saying it wasn’t the same as the infamous “train to nowhere” (their words!) because it was largely funded by private enterprise!
It was shortly after I moved from Las Vegas to SoCal in 1967 that I first heard about a having special train over that same distance. Fifty-five years later they finally got some funding. I need to deputize someone to write these same words fifty-five years from now. They sure as hell won’t have a train to write about.
Color me suspicious.
California’s existing high speed rail boondoggle project that people are growing weary of funding (some sooner than others) is divided into phases. Phase 1 is from LA to LA to San Francisco. Phase 2 is from LA to San Diego and an offshoot in the North from Merced to Sacramento.
Now I look at a driving map from LA to Vegas and the initial leg is LA to Rancho Cucamonga, CA which is also a third of the LA to San Diego phase 2.
Now there is probably a lot of traffic from LA to Vegas and many of those won’t really use a car while in Vegas but I can’t help wonder if Biden is doing this to send more money to the CA high speed rail mess.
Worse yet if they are talking two separate high speed rail lines between LA and Rancho Cucamonga.
Driving from LA to Sin City, one is often passed by motorists on I-15 while cruising at 85 mph. Returning, on the other hand, can involve lengthy waits at the state line for agricultural inspection. Going to Vegas for any reason at all is another question, entirely.
That seems dumb. What agricultural products are produced in the Nevada desert? Some of it is some of the most barren dessert I’ve ever seen.
Here’s a link to a video by ReasonTV made thirteen years ago about Obama’s misguided plan to build a national high-speed rail network:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xyUg4J7Sf8&pp=ygU1d2h5IG9iYW1hJ3MgaGlnaCBzcGVlZCByYWlsIHBsYW4gd2lsbCBnbyBub3doZXJlIGZhc3Q%3D
You’d think Biden would learn from Obama’s mistake? I doubt it.
Here’s a link to a video by ReasonTV made thirteen years ago about Obama’s misguided plan to build a national high-speed rail network:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xyUg4J7Sf8
You’d think Biden would learn from Obama’s mistake? I doubt it.
Indonesia just finished a sleek and beautiful high speed “bullet train” called “the Woosh” that goes 220 to 239 MPH. That makes it the fastest train in the world. The company which owns it, “Fast train Indonesia China” in English, is 60% owned by Indonesia and 40% by China, which developed it. Located on the island of Java, it travels 88.7 miles between the Capitol, Jakarta, with a population of 34 million known citizens and God knows how many unknown, to a city named Bandung, with a population of 11 million. The largest city here in America, New York City, has a population of 8.8 million. There are 14 round trips on two sets of tracks for 28 total which seats 16,828 people. On weekends there are 18 round trips for 36 total. The Jakarta station has three platforms and six track lines. It travels at ground level, on elevated tracks, through tunnels and across bridges. Construction began in August 2018 and the train began commercial service in October of this year. It took only five years to complete the project and has an occupancy rate of 98.5%.
The Indonesian government plans to extend it from Bandung 450 miles East to Surabaya, the second largest city in Indonesia with a population of 6,998,000. Unlike the CA and federal governments here, the Indonesian government will complete the extension in short order just as it did the first leg.
The Woosh cost 7.3 billion compared to the 5 billion spent and a 100 billion projected cost for the train to nowhere, which has been a fantasy since it was proposed in 2008 – 23 years ago going on 24 less than a month from now. And the projected cost will continue to rise, especially with Bidenflation.
Now Alzheimer Joe’s handlers propose a 2.3 TRILLION “infrastructure” bill with a projected 80 billion for another “high speed” (my ass) train to nowhere that will waste billions and also never be built. And the “infrastructure” bill, if passed by the Dirtbagocrat RINO coalition, will actually cost far more than 2.3 trillion and accomplish nothing but waste.
I don’t write about this to tout Indonesia but to show how corrupt, incompetent and SCUMMY the CA and federal governments are. Indonesia is considered a developing company but it kicks our asses with public transportation, action. costs and governing cities which dwarf our biggest and have a fraction of the violence. Look up the fast train Jakarta online. It’s beautiful. My friend texted me of a photo of her standing near it, which is how I found out about it. It’s a marvel that America used to be capable of producing but no longer. You’ll feel as disgusted and ashamed of our government as I do.
“Country,” not “company.” Damn, I hate automatic spell check programs. They suck so hard I’m surprised they weren’t developed by the Alzheimer Joe administration.
THE CHATANNOGA CHOO CHOO,WALBASH CANNONBALL,CITY OF NEW ORLEANS,THE A-TRAIN,ORANGE BLOSOM SPECIAL, AST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE Etc. Now here comes the Pork Train
Don’t forget John Fogerty’s “Big Train (to Memphis,”) “Southern Streamline” and “Train of Fools.” Johnny Cash did “Wabash Cannonbal,” “Orange Blossom Express” and “This Train is Bound For Glory.”Train, Train’ by Blackfoot,’ “Hear My Train A Comin” by Jimi Hendrix, “Train Kept a Rollin” by Aerosmith………….damn, I never knew there were so many good songs about trains. I could probably go on all day 😛
Maybe Fogerty could write one about the pork train. The guy turned 79 this year but he still writes and plays great music and hasn’t lost his voice, which is also great. He’s a lefty though, so probably not. Too bad. He hit it big back when the stinky hippies were around.
Texas promoted high speed rail when the North American Union was being pushed hard. It would have connected Houston and Dallas. It is a little over a 4 hour car ride and about an hour flight between the two cities. Total waste of taxpayer money.