This came over the transom this week:
With the December holidays just around the corner, Americans everywhere are feeling the pinch.
Congress knows we’re in trouble, but they can’t fix our country’s economy without making a down-payment to complete America’s transportation system.
We can get our country moving again with investment in smart infrastructure and a fix-it-first approach.
This means prioritizing the preservation of what we already have – and jump-starting the specific investments that will build us a 21st-century transportation system.
We can’t just waste money on pork-barrel projects. For a true green recovery, we need to invest in ready-to-go projects, build walkable and bikeable communities, construct high-speed trains, and create new jobs that are linked to our clean energy future. These are the environmentally sound solutions that our country needs now and in the years to come.
Already hundreds have spoken up – and already President-elect Obama has stood by our side and given us a seat at the table – but we need you to join with us today so we can make sure Congress follows through.
Creating 15 million new jobs that can’t be outsourced, breaking our addiction to oil, investing in a clean, green economic recovery – we can make it happen with your help.
Sincerely,
Ilana Preuss
Outreach and Field Director
Transportation for America
6 responses to “T4America Pushes Congress for a Green Recovery”
We can’t just waste money on pork-barrel projects. . . . For a true green recovery, we need to invest in . . . high-speed trains
JK: What a laugh — trains are the ultimate pork-barrel projects.
Thanks
JK
JK: What a laugh — trains are the ultimate pork-barrel projects.
Odd that every other developed nation seems to think otherwise, isn’t it?
“Odd that every other developed nation seems to think otherwise, isn’t it?”
JK: Its pork over there too. Also highly subsidized in most places.
Please tell how many places where the train users pay for both construction and operation?
Thanks
JK
JK: Its pork over there too. Also highly subsidized in most places.
Please tell how many places where the train users pay for both construction and operation?
Pretty much everywhere, since construction and operation is paid for by taxes which are paid by the same people who ride the trains — and they ride them because the trains are fast, convenient and ubiquitous.
You’re locked into that pay for play model. If everyone had that attitude, we’d still be living in a feudal state.
construct high-speed trains
Exactly how do “high-speed trains” stimulate the economy, or even help the environment?
In the countries that have high-speed rail – Japan, France, Germany, etc., their high-speed systems are a very, very small part of their total rail infrastructure – think of them as “loss leaders”. Yes, they get lots of publicity…but few people (comparatively) use them.
The majority of rail traffic in those countries occurs on what America would call a “commuter train”; and the majority of “long-distance” traffic is what America would call a “regional train” using conventional equipment traveling at conventional speed.
The American “long distance” train has very few comparisons, outside of Canada and Russia; and it’s even more pronounced in those countries that the long-distance train is seldom used by the general public.
If we want to promote investment in transportation, it is best done at the local level. Promoting “walkable, bikeable communities” only works if those housing units are affordable – which in Portland clearly has proven otherwise. Promoting sensible transit which includes a wide range of both rail-based and non-rail based (think: bus) options to serve a metropolitan area is the best investment that serves all walks of life, without consideration towards income level or other discriminate factors.
WOW, Erik Halstead, you think exactly the way I do. If you lived in California, that would make two of us.
Clearly this State’s voters bought the Kool-Aid PR of how the HSR will be the universal panacea, including curing all the traffic problems in the State’s two population centers. The fact is, we suffer from a profound lack of urban and regional mass transit, and a luxury train from SF to LA won’t fix anything. Boondoggle is the exact term for this.