I had to drive to Montgomery today. 3 hours down and three hours back. Spent all of 2+45 in the city itself. Came back and went to sleep for a couple of hours. Now I’m awake and probably won’t be able to go to sleep at a normal hour.
Today highlighted again to me-what is wrong with this country transportation wise. If there had been a decent train system running between Shopping Mall and there-like they have in Japan-I could have been to city center in 1+20. Gotten my business done and been back before 2 PM.
Instead I fought cops and cars getting around Birmingham on the way back. And-God bless ’em-Alabama actually has a decent speed limit of 70 miles an hour. Not like the homo’s in Virgina with their no radar detectors and 55 mile an hour ("55 means 55") BS. It still takes too long.
If I had been king of the world-I would have directed a "stimulus" probably a lot differently. In fact I would not have called it a stimulus at all-but a correction of spending priorities. There would have been no wild rush to get it through Congress, which is one of the problems I would probably have if I were ever in such a position. I’d want to impose my will on them and have no arguement in response.
However, what I would have done would have been to plus up spending on things that will make a difference in the long run, and serve to generate continuing jobs in the long run. That’s where the republicans never got it. Tax cuts, especially tax cuts only for the rich, don’t accomplish that.
Me? I would have increased defense spending on "stuff" like ships. I would also have poured some money into a high speed train system that would help America redefine what getting from point A to B means. And the more I live here (which hopefully won’t be any longer than next year) I would start it in the South.
Alabama would be a great test case. You could run a high speed train line from Nashville to Mobile. The cities actually line up nicely and it would split the state like a fishbone. Feeder lines come come in from east to west in each of the major cities. Feeder bus lines and decent taxt service could feed the feeder lines-or they could have decent parking. Using already proven bullet train technology, I would have been able to be whisked from Shopping Mall to Montegomery at 275 kilometers per hour.
Would it take time to build and would it be expensive-yep. However over the long haul it would dramatically change the way people look at this state.
However it will remain-like the idea of going back to the moon, mocked daily by the Saturn V rocket rising above Interstate 565- a pipe dream. People are too busy arguing about things that have never been said, and worry about whether the president of the United States is really a citizen. Or enhancing national glory for Muslims who don’t give a rat’s ass about what we want.
The money is there. It just needs to be re-directed.
But it won’t.
So I drive 6+30 hours at an abysmal speed. I’m like Sammy Haggar, I can’t do it.
9.3 billion has been allocated for high speed rail systems.
It’s ironic that back in the day there were crack express trains (the “Pan American” and “Hummingbird”) that took exactly the route you are describing. WSM radio used to broadcast the Pan American passing its broadcast tower in Nashville everyday. Not that I remember – before my time.
$300 MILLION $ per MILE for track.
$300 MILLION $ per MILE of track!
There must be all of 25 people a day who want/need to go from Nashville to Mobile and vice versa.
Where do you get that figure from? Japan spent less per mile than that-and they have to import just about everything.
As for how many people want to go from Nashville to Mobile-there certainly were a lot more than 25 out on the damn interstate.
The $300 million is from the various light rail suicide pacts I’ve experienced here in southern CA and what I saw in Hawaii last month. Hawaii is broke and yet Honolulu wants to spend $7 BILLION on a light rail system serving just the south shore major metropolitan area (OK, we can all have a giggle at describing any part of Hawaii in such fashion.) When I left Lingle and the state had decided that the only way to deal with a projected $300 million shortfall and balance the budget (required by law) was to furlough employees 2 days a month for the next 2 years. The idea that they can come up with $7 BILLION is ludicrous. The same applies here in southern CA.
My brother and his family just climbed into their van and drove back to the Bay Area this afternoon and we all lamented that CA does not have and never will have the kind of rail system found in Europe or Japan where they could just climb aboard a train and fly 500 miles in 5 hours but instead need to drive 9 hours to go the same distance. We all kind of grasp the fact that this here is a continent not some little island or some heavily subsidized “national” rail system built in a score of countries each the size of the state of New Jersey or New York. Perhaps that’s a bad example? After all, both those states have heavily subsidized commuter rail systems that feed into the major metropolitan area. What the rest of the states have is AMTRACK, a complete fiscal disaster…..because nobody takes the train. We were laughing this morning at the La Jolla cove about the train from Reno to Emeryville that always pulls in 2 hours late. We have no Carnegie in this era.