Same Old Rail-Highways Double Standard
TMJ4-TV news this evening was teasing their upcoming report on the high-speed rail funding coming our way to build a line between Madison and Milwaukee.
The gist was: $800 million, but whose going to pay for it?
You never hear highway financing spun that way. No one ever asks: $2.3 billion for the Zoo Interchange: whose going to pay for it?
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5 comments:
Bingo. You're exactly right.
We've come to expect a highway that won't be budget-neutral.
That's because people will use the Zoo interchange.
People use rural roads that see 5 cars in a week. We need rails with useful routes so we can return to transporting our nation more quickly and efficiently. Like we did in the 1800s.
To expand on James Wigderson's comment . . .
That's because many more people will use the Zoo Interchange in one day, than will use the Milwaukee-Madison "high-speed" train in one year.
Seriously, has anyone seen the ridership projections they are touting - they are a joke. I want some of whatever it is they are smoking.
Have you seen the ridership for high-speed rail in Wisconsin in the last year? Oh yeah, it doesn't exist yet. How are we to compare the usage of the primary source of transport with a plan on paper? Of course more people drive! That's the problem we're trying to address!
Snide "who's going to pay for it" and "more people will still drive" comments don't help this state move forward. My brother is in the Marines and just got moved to DC, glowing about the ease of getting around. Why do we have a mental block that in the Midwest, we can't have such nice things?
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