Bush signs bill with $45 million for Maglev train from Vegas to LA

[Amby 490]

I live in a small city of about 350k and the traffic is so annoying. The area keeps growing so fast. It takes me 45 minutes to make the 17 mile trip to college. I wish there was better public transport here.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I live in a small city of about 350k and the traffic is so annoying. The area keeps growing so fast. It takes me 45 minutes to make the 17 mile trip to college. I wish there was better public transport here.

What we really need is teletransportation. Would render the whole discussion moot.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

$45 million sounds like too little. For example there's a project under consideration in my area called the Lackawanna cutoff which is supposed to re-establish conventional rail service from Scranton PA to Hoboken NJ using existing rail lines and existing bridges (after rehabilitation). The cost? Half a billion.

I don't see how $45 million is anything more than a token.

No kidding. $45 million would barely get you a decent sized office building.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

There isn't anything resembling public transport in the sticks.

To be fair, the investment in public transportation doesn't make sense if there isn't a dense enough population.

Of course not. There was this episode, I remember, years back in Germany when I worked for a group of county commissioners. They were talking about this bus service that some activists wanted extended deep into the county - a county neighboring Berlin which was bigger than the smallest state. So, there was this cost analysis and we found that it would have been cheaper to get each of the route users a taxi cab each time they wanted to go some place and just have the county pick up the tab.

Edited June 7, 2008 by Mr. Big Dog

[Ban Hammer 12,836]

The Chinese have prison slaves. Beat that.

maybe something we can do with illegals when caught

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

The OBAMA lord will take care of it!

[zqt3344 21]

Great now we can all be like the rest of the third world now, riding rickety old trains all over the place!

Plans for a levitating train from Las Vegas to Disneyland can move forward under a transportation bill signed by President Bush on Friday that frees up $45 million for the futuristic project.

Derided by critics as pie in the sky, the train would use magnetic levitation technology to carry passengers from Disneyland to Las Vegas in well under two hours, traveling at speeds of up to 300 mph. It would be the first MagLev system in the U.S.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9...;show_article=1

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The OBAMA lord will take care of it!

Jeez Marc - you've got Obama on the brain.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

Maglev is expensive, as its still a relatively new technology. But I really think its the only way to go, especially for inter-regional transportation.

Unless there is something cost prohibitive (Like parking in NY), most people will probably take cars instead of trains to go places. The only way trains will really compete, is if they can offer speed that no one else can.

Well in LA EVERYBODY would be on a train if they could get outta this crazy traffic. I take the train to work and it is BLISS!! Bliss I tell yuh!!!

I have said this for years! I say it every time we drive that terrible 2 lane stretch of the 15 from Barstow to the Nevada border. You know how they could make up a budget shortfall? Have gambling on board.

[Dr. Obvious 49]

Great now we can all be like the rest of the third world now, riding rickety old trains all over the place!

OK...

I did get this memory in my mind when I was in BFE Lithuania and this ancient Soviet era train came and picked me up from some sign marked where I was. I would not call a small clearing in the woods a station. They had a dry erase board the size of a normal clipboard with the schedule written on it. However that was better than IndyGo where you have to call to find out where the hell a particular bus is going at any particular time. It still hasn't occurred to them to post schedules at their stops. Who's third world now?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Great now we can all be like the rest of the third world now, riding rickety old trains all over the place!

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Why so much effort from the Nevada delegation for an Anaheim-to-Las Vegas train that would cost $4.4 billion, as of 2005 estimates? The state faces a multi-billion shortfall in basic highway, bus and other transportation needs.

Reid said traffic has grown so bad in Southern Nevada -- on Interstate 15 and at McCarran airport — that it is time to think of a grand solution.

“If it’s going to be really done in a big way, a Las Vegas way, the magnetic levitation would be the way to do it,” Reid said. “We could bring someone from L.A. to Las Vegas, and vice-versa, in less than an hour,” he said. “If we can get this done, it will be the showboat of the world.”

Reid scoffed at [senator] DeMint’s advocacy of a competing, private company’s plans for a regular train between Las Vegas and the Antelope Valley, in the desert some 85 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Reid questioned whether tourists would drive through the traffic of Los Angeles to Victorville to take a train the last 200 miles.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/blogs/news/2008...ain-california/

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

DeMint argued the maglev project needed to be examined anew since a private consortium, Desert XPress, now proposes to build a high speed rail line between Las Vegas and Victorville, Calif., without taxpayer funding.

http://www.lvrj.com/news/17842369.html

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

It sounds like a good idea. LA to Vegas is a dog of a drive - through some pretty weird country.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

They need a monorail. Just like the one in North Haverbrook.