High-Speed Rail and the “Reason” Foundation.

Here is what the “Reason” Foundation says about High Speed Rail:

If you don’t want to read the whole thing:

• a Highway project in Massachusetts ended up cost more money than planned for — as we all know highway projects always cost way too much.
• the US can’t get off its ass and build anything faster than the Acela. (at a time when the French have tested a train that could beat a plane flying the JFK-LAX route)
• the California HSR route is longer than the Acela line and somehow that means the percentage market capture should be smaller — because as we all know people take High-Speed Rail to get to their neighbor’s house or their kitchen.
• Apparently the species of homo sapiens (homo sillius?) that lives in the US is different than the species living in Japan and Europe — so therefore anything that other species does does not apply to homo sillius.
• High-Speed Rail apparently is supposed to compete against Greyhound on a price basis and against planes based on time. I didn’t realize that the business bus traveler was such an important target market.
• All that stuff in the latest Star Trek movie — you know …. those cool transporters that instantly zap you from place to place … are already in place. Those transporters will be used to instantly zap you out of your house, past airport security to your airline seat. Travelers will not have to arrive at the airport 2 hours before their flight. At the other end, the transporters will get travelers from LAX to where they really want to be. This will keep that airline flight of 80 min time competitive with a 150min HSR trip. The bad news is that sometimes TSA regulations result in you arriving unclothed because TSA needs to send your clothes for “extra screening”. Hospital gowns will be provided while you are waiting for your clothes to catch up. Remember the adage to deal with stage fright “Imagine your audience is wearing no clothes?” well now you will not have to imagine…
• Businesses survive by satisfying the “homo consumius” species. politicians survive by satisfying the “homo votius” species. Once again, new subspecies that our high school textbooks sadly have failed to document.
• Bonds are a bad idea. investment is a bad idea.