Death To Rail (Bride Of RTA) - Granite Grok

Death To Rail (Bride Of RTA)

As the NH Senate takes up HB 218, a bill to end the NH Rail Transit Authority, Chris Williams of the Nashua Greater Chamber of Commerce adds his two cents in defense of the public costs of commuter rail.

…saying all public transportation is subsidized, including roads and airports. “No one is saying we ought to take away public funding for roads and airports and have the private sector fund that,” he said.

This is what we call the tits-on-a-bull defense.  I guess Chris wants rail.  There is no good reason for it, he just wants it.  And he could care less that we already have infrastructure that works, that is more adaptable, and which costs significantly less to operate.

Using Department of transportation estimates, and some back of the envelope calculations, maintenance on I-93, on the same glide path, is $10,000.00 per lane per mile, or under 2 million per year from the border to Concord after widening.  Let’s call it  3 million.  Commuter rail, which almost no one will use, will cost us an additional $7,000,000.00 to 1$0.000,000.00  million more, every single year, on top of the existing infrastructure before inflation.

There’s a nice recap Here –some of my previous comments on rail that Chris Williams should read.  It talks about costs, taxes, who would most likley be asked to pay them.  Things that make you wonder why we’d waste ten million a year on rail when we could use it on something else, like a big wall and border patrol agents to keep the liberals in Massachusetts and Vermont from emigrating into New Hampshire to beg for commuter rail so they could still hop on a train to visit home.

 

H/T Garry Rayno – Union Leader

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