Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Good political news!

Florida's governor has rejected $2 billion in federal funding for high speed rail between Orlando and Tampa.  Democrats are, of course, enraged that their trolley project is derailed, and they're warning that this is a death knell for affordable, efficient transportation.

Well, to answer this, let's take a look at the map:  Orlando to Tampa is about 85 miles, typically driven in about 90 minutes.  In other words, travelers are being asked to spend 90 minutes getting to the station and waiting for the train in order to....spend another 70 minutes on a train that goes marginally faster than their car.

Or, just a little bit slower than....Greyhound, which charges the princely fare of $28 for the trip, and only runs four buses each day along this route.  In short, the feds wanted to devote two billion dollars of capital to serve a few hundred passengers daily--a remarkable waste even for the current spendthrifts in DC, to put it mildly.  Thank you, Governor Scott, for rejecting this boondoggle.

2 comments:

Elspeth said...

Oh, and it's just getting good.

The FL NEA is up in arms, as well as the State Congressional black caucus.

Things are just getting interesting.

Bike Bubba said...

Remembering you live somewhere around there, my condolences for the fact that you may not have the chance to spend $500 for train tickets to get to Disneyworld instead of driving there and back for a fifth the cost or less. :^)

And some people just live to be offended, don't they? Have fun!