atlantis wrote:In my humble opinion, NIMBYs and politics have been the two major obstacles to this country having an expanded passenger rail system. It's one thing to be opposed if the rail line has been inactive for many years or decades. Then one can see the necessity of trying to work with the abutters in the situation. The appalling thing, imo, are the ones who move into a property next to an ACTIVE rail line, then complain about train movements and proposals to start new train services. (e.g. Foxboro.)
Spot on! It's like moving next to the airport and then complaining about the airplanes!
Look at what the squeaky wheels at Brickbottom have cost the MBTA
(us!) for the Greenline project, and what the opposition to Greenbush did to the numbers - forever making that a questionable financial endeavor.
Kudos to Brightline for getting up and running as quickly as they have - though I think the attitude in Florida is a lot more infrastructure-friendly than Massachusetts. They are building new roads and railroads everywhere. They just seem to go and do what needs to be done.
This NIMBY attitude combined with insane self-imposed strangling regulation has crippled almost any major new project - rail or otherwise. Trump is certainly right on this matter.