Trains (and jobs) are coming to Ohio.

Finally, I can get from Cleveland to Cincinnati in only 6.5 hours.

Without driving, paying for gas, or parking. When Ohio's able to upgrade to a high speed passenger rail service, the trip will be as fast as car travel.

Also, given that 25% of urban residents have NO automobile, this is a good step. It's going to drive up the demand for steel, create 11,000 jobs, and it pisses you off royally.

A perfect sweep.

Ohio won't get the high speed.

Driving to the train station, parking, waiting for the train which might be late, taking a family of 4 from Cincy to Cleveland for $240 bucks to see a game at Progressive Field, and renting a car. WOW

Greyhound is 4.5 hours for the same trip, and $11 cheaper per ticket.

If that steel wasn't in demand already, then you are using government to encourage a malinvestment of resources. But at least you are an honest centralized planner.

Non sequiter much? Nothing you just wrote had anything to do with your thesis.
Please, tell me again how creating 11,000 jobs while improving our infrastructure (a public good which benefits the overall economy) is such a horrible idea. I think the people of Ohio looking to benefit from the nearly 300 construction projects this will generate in the next two years would disagree.

Also, you wouldn't need to rent a car to see a game in Cleveland. You really don't know squat about public transportation in Ohio, do you?

true…but I wouldn't put my family on a grayhound.

Shalom Cubejockey,

Why not?

B'shalom,

Jeff

Because they're an egregious union-busting outfit where crazed riders kill and dismember other passengers while everybody else watches. Aside from that my personal experience is that long-haul buses are an horribly uncomfortable way to travel. Given no hurry, my fave way to travel is Amtrak.

Shalom Mvirenicus,

But I have such fond memories of humpin' the dog across America.

B'shalom,

Jeff

Deal! I'm not much of a beer guy but I'll go a few steps out of my way for a delicious bock.

Just. Can’t. Imagine. It. Can you?

Try thinking outside your worldview for a moment. You might not agree, but at least you’ll have a better argument than “That’s just nonsense!”. Have you no scholarly curiosity? Dare to imagine.

Amazon.com editorial review of Prof. Walter Block’s “Privatization of Roads and Highways”.

“Walter Block’s remarkable new treatise on private roads, will cause you to rethink the whole of the way modern transportation networks operate. It is bold, innovative, radical, compelling, and shows how free-market economic theory is the clarifying lens through which to see the failures of the state & see the alternative that is consistent with human liberty.

The book comes together as a battle plan against government roads and a complete roadmap for a future of private transportation. “

http://www.amazon.com/Privatization-Roads-Highways-Walter-Block/dp/193355004X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264731463&sr=8-1

I’ve read excerpts, but not the whole book (yet). The man delivers.

(And libertarians, at least not the “I’m-Libertarian-Because-My-Party-Is-Out-Of-Power” variety (see: Glenn Beck), do not accept road building as a “legitimate government function”.)

Ohio's budget to repair infrastructure is up over 30% from the prior budget. Strickland just announced a host of infrastructure repair projects today, too.

You'd prolly have opposed Eisenhower's Interstate System, too.

Yes, I would have.

But you prolly lack faith in the ability of people to creatively and voluntarily solve the problem of roads, or any other large infrastructure project, without “assistance” from the state. You prolly think the beautiful city neighborhoods (like where my parents grew up) that were destroyed by the interstates as acceptable collateral damage in the name of the “public good”. You prolly were never told that you had to sell something, oh, like your house, that was bought and paid for, even though you didn't want to sell it and move, at any price. But you prolly think you are head and shoulders smarter than any of those wretched slobs who lived in those houses and didn't know what was good for them anyway.

And like I said, the government is beyond broke. You better hope the Chinese, Japanese, and everybody else will lend you the money to pay for your new train set.

Democratic representative government is the process in which 50% +1 of the people get to impose their will upon the other 50%-1. That's great, as long as your side has the “+1″, right? Tough shit if your -1.

And if the government wasn't building the roads, somebody else would. And they'd have to do it without using the government to exploit the taxpayers.

they are going to use existing rails, this will add zero jobs

a complete waste.

Shalom Brian,

Uh, I hate to come in on the side of the devils, but history is rife with roads and other public works projects such as bridges, dams and harbors being built by subscription.

The process was the origin of the toll road. The greatest example in the United States, of course, is, in fact, the rail system which is 99.9 percent privately built. (Railroads did receive very lucrative land grants as in incentive to build.)

B'shalom,

Jeff

B'shalom,

Jeff

Shalom Brian,

In hindsight, Eisenhower's Interstate Defense Highway System has proven to be not such a good idea. Originally conceived as a way to facilitate the rapid evacuation of cities in times of a threat of nuclear war, they have instead:

Facilitated white flight from cities;
Engendered urban sprawl;
Drastically increased our dependence on foreign oil;
Ballooned our nation's carbon footprint; and
Crippled our previous rail system by diverting traffic to diesel trucks.

There's more, but holding up the Interstates as a good example of government spending is not so good.

B'shalom,

Jeff

Okay mary jo, here's a hitching story from right here in ohio. An old man picked me up and almost immediately pulled a revolver from under his seat. He said, “this is just in case you get any ideas.” He drove me over 100 miles and we had great conversation along the way. Oh yeah, he bought me lunch too.

It is okay.

ohio is thinking ahead of the curve.

most commercial air travel will go under when Oil remains above 90 bucks a barrel most of the time. China and japan have much more to trade for oil than the U.S.

Big Government built our interstates. Mandated them. It was a wealth generating program: it made it possible for many folks to become rich as developers or big box retailers or shopping mall developers and office park magnates. the steel makers and industrialists who built all the cars we needed to get to the mall and the office park and school.

Now Big Government has to rebuild most of the rail that America dismantled in the mid 20th century.

world's gonna slow down a bit as oil gets harder to pay for.

Hi, mvirenicus, well you definitely made wise lifestyle decisions, no doubt about that. As for your name, does it have something to do with a mosquito?