SAYATA

Transportation - A Better Way to Spend the $8 Billion

It is reported that after the Obama State of the Union Speech Obama intends to later make a speech on a High-Speed Rail Plan. Many experts say that the high-speed rail projects would not be properly funded with the $8 billion. Spreading the money among the many projects would prevent any project from having enough money to get up and running.

Some political groups looking at the spending plan go so far as to suggest that the spending is planned more to shore up votes in certain regions like Florida than to actually build a high speed system. Such a suggestion may be overly cynical.

The question that voters need to ask is if a High Speed Rail System is a viable economic and transportation model that will actually benefit anyone other than the French Companies that would get the majority of the contracts.

Atlanta already has MARTA as its rail/ bus system. At best it is currently tentative as a business model. When it was being built my father said that it largely starts no where and it goes no where. That is something of an overstatement but the point is valid in that it only attracts rider-ship that it does serve and that rider-ship has proven limited. Would speed cause it to increase rider-ship or make it more viable as a business? The answer is no.

Would connecting cities with high speed rail cause people to travel between cities on rail instead of by car or by air? Even if such a system were to actually be fully built out which is unlikely, the answer is probably no.

What could be accomplished by spending the least amount of money and saving the American consumer the most amount of money? Would the $8 billion be better spent to try to reduce congestion in areas where congestion is the primary source of energy waste and pollution?

First, states, cities, and counties should be required to make electric golf carts street legal. This would cost the government nothing but increase the golf cart / battery business.

Second, in congested areas the government should block the areas off to everything except electric golf carts, bicycles, pedestrians, trams, delivery/pickup services, and vehicles to provide emergency services. The cost would be to build parking stations on the periphery of the blocked off areas where the people could park. The parking stations should host businesses where people could rent bicycles and electric golf carts or get on and off trams. Private business might need to be given grants or loans to establish themselves at the parking stations.

Third, grants / loans might be provided to private bus systems to expand routes between cities.

Fourth, freight rail companies might be provided grants / loans to add back passenger services. If those services prove to have a customer base, then help those companies to build out high speed systems for both freight and passenger services.

The government has got to do a better job of working with American small business and even American big business to do a better job of meeting the needs of the American people. This notion that the government can or even should do it all is not very productive.