All_Aboard_Wisconsin meeting

There will be a meeting on February 28, 10 am, at the Wisconsin Council of The blind, in Madison. All who are interested in trains, and can offer constructive help, are invited to attend.

"The Great High Speed Rail Lie"

"The Great High Speed Rail Lie." at SFGate.com:

Some excerpts:

"In 2008, voters approved a $10 billion bond to begin construction of a bullet train from Los Angeles to San Francisco that would make that trip in less than three hours. So who knew that by 2011 the general consensus would be that the project is an ill-conceived, mismanaged boondoggle?

Former Amtrak spokesman and Reason Foundation writer Joseph Vranich knew."

"So what's going on here?

It's simple. Vranich makes stuff up. Adrianne Moore, vice president of policy at the Reason Foundation, says the Europeans are abandoning rail in favor of driving and flying. Nonsense."

"The Reason Foundation is funded by Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, the American Petroleum Institute, Delta Airlines, the National Air Transportation Association and, of course, the Koch Family Foundation. They know what will happen once Americans, furious about gas prices and the way airlines treat them, experience electrically powered 200-mph trains. But big oil and aviation can't attack high-speed rail directly - that would be an obvious attempt to abort competition. So they hire a "think tank."

Reason collaborates on research with James Moore III, a transportation engineering professor at University of Southern California. They parrot Reason's "train to nowhere" nonsense, a phrase they apply to all rail projects. It's especially absurd in this case, because interim services will have high-speed rail trains slow and reach the Bay Area on existing rail lines. Reason's minions claim there's no business plan or ridership figures. Except that anyone can go on the California High-Speed Rail Authority website and download them."

"A modern 200-mile-per-hour rail link between Los Angeles and San Francisco will change America's transportation paradigm. Just like in Europe and Asia, California will develop a profitable system joining all its cities. Nearby states, such as Nevada and Arizona, will link into the network, just like European countries did after France established its network. Jet airplanes will be used for what they were intended: long-distance travel. Automobile use will be reduced. This will save millions of barrels of oil. And that's the real reason these lobbyists want it stopped."

This is what we will continue to face in the future. The opposition rhetoric will find fertile ground among those who have never ridden aboard a train. It will be up to us to counter this rhetoric with our own.