Ironman wrote:I am taking the inflation from the bailouts into account. That's why I said the living wage will decrease. They may raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour, but it won't matter if the price for food, clothing, gas, ect. increase.
The growth in labor related expenses for heavily railroads tend to outpace inflation, so in the event of hight inflation, you can expect that train ticket prices will increase dramatically, even before major capital investments in "high speed rail."
Ironman wrote:One thing is certain, we won't be able to use automobiles the way we use them now.
That is arguable. I think that individuals with limited means will see their automobile use limited, due to rising costs of insurance, fuel and even high costs of ownership, but there again, passenger rail fares aren't exactly dirt cheap either. I think that it's fair to say that transportation will take up a larger percentage of average personal income.
Ironman wrote:We should be building the alternatives now. High speed rail linking major cities is one of them.
Within certain urban areas, commuter rail and mass transit are invaluable. Within certain regions with adequate population densities, intercity rail has it's place. However, there are very few places where population and existing rail passenger markets justify true "high speed rail." Go outside of the Northeast Corridor, and "high speed rail" frequently is just a pie-in-the-sky catchphrase. Even in California, a high speed rail corridor look economically unsupportable at the moment, consider that the state lacks the means to subsidize the continuing operation of such a system, and an economy that generates a staggering 10% unemployment rate seems unlikely to generate the necessary revenues and passenger growth. California might be the best potential candidate for HSR outside of the Northeast Corridor, but it remains a terrible venue for this sort of investment.
What should be obvious is that the Empire Corridor needs improved service, and that there is growth potential in terms of passenger volumes, even west of Albany. However, if these improvements take the form of a needlessly expensive upgrade exotic trainsets and dedicated passenger trackage, you will see a counterproductive increase in public debt, and increase in taxation and a massive increase in rail fares.
In other words, upstate New York needs improved conventional passenger rail service. We don't need a repeat of the Turbotrain fiasco. Believe me when I say that "high speed rail" can become yet another state sponsored fiasco, although this time around we're talking about potentially wasting tens of billions of dollar.
