Opinion: Letter
Trains are viable stimulus
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Recently, there was an article published in The Badger Herald (“Amtrak proposal unrealistic,” March 2, 2009) that suggested using money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (or as it’s more commonly known the stimulus package) on public transit would be bad for the state. The author of the article suggested that it would be a travesty to plan to spend government funds that do not benefit every citizen in
Public transit — or more specifically, the establishment of a high-speed rail throughout the state of
Another major focus in the shift to public transit is the environment. As much as it may seem like old news, climate change is an important issue on local and state levels as well as on a national level. Switching toward public transit would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels (especially foreign oil), reduce our carbon footprint and reduce our utter helplessness in the face of sporadic changes in gas prices.
Varied public projects on a local level may sound like an intelligible idea, but these projects would not do nearly as much for our future as the establishment of local and statewide high-speed rail system. I am encouraging people to support a viable, technologically sound alternative to the same old ideas and urging Wisconsinites to support 21st-century public transit in any way they can.
Jonah Bromwich
Sophomore, political science
WISPIRG Public Transit Campaign
bromwich@wisc.edu
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I love how this comes from a political science major and not an economics major.
First the idea that a high speed train will help lower the 20% this person claims people spend on transportation is just a silly thought. People do not regularly travel by train anywhere in our country because its too big. For trains to be effective you’d have to have 300 mile and an hour trains going literally all over the place. Besides that most people do not use trains anyway. I am from the D.C. area and honestly most people do not use trains because prices are expensive compared to driving when you include the opportunity cost of how long it takes to travel on them.
Most importantly however is who will run this grand train system? There is not a single train system operated by a government in the entire world that is not a bankrupt system, excluding Japan but they have a tiny little island again with a greater density of train systems than we have here.
It’s not that a high speed train is not a great idea. It just costs more to design, operate efficiently, and build than citizens will get out of it. Besides why should we all pay taxes for a system only a few people will use? It’s wrong to assume that tourism would go up. Why would it go up? Seriously name any tourist event that someone would not take the time to go to now that would somehow happen because of a $100 dollar train ticket. The idea is laughable and absolutely not a reason to build a train system.
I love how economics majors think they know everything.
3:38, wrong. China is investing in high speed rail from Hong Kong to Beijing. Last time I checked, China was the world’s sugar daddy.
Pabble bed nuclear power plants and electric cars would be a much better and cheaper alternative.
The cost of rail is usually higher than buying every rider a new car and a lifetime supply of gasoline.
Note I said gasoline - ethanol take more energy to produce than it privides.