The MBTA is an unmitigated disaster. It’s a mess. A money pit. And while it serves, as best as it can, a sprawling metropolis around a major US city (Boston), it’s not anything we’d want in New Hampshire. But that’s what our choo-choo fetishists are after. At any cost.
Which brings us (once again) to SB241 which spends more millions on another rail study. But it’s more than that.
“It’s project development, aka engineering, aka design, aka the first step onto the slippery slope, to the point of no return. The first step is a teaser with federal money. The hurt for NH taxpayers comes when we have to subsidize nearly empty trains or give the money back and be left with nothing but debt to show for the foolish decision,” says Dick Lemieux of Concord, a retired highway engineer and transportation planner who has been an observer of transportation policy for almost 50 years, including 33 years New Hampshire.
There are a lot of reasons why we don’t need this. If you’d like a few more, and some clarity on what a scam this all is, I suggest looking here. But there may be an easier way to put an end to it.
The argument should not be “do trains pay for themselves,” they don’t. They lose money. A lot of money. Forever. Even in major cities with millions of people using them, trains don’t just lose money; they take it away from other priorities.
So, the question should not be, “do we need or want a train?” It should be “does that train provide something that justifies the significant and permanent loss of revenue from other priorities, every year, forever?”
New Hampshire gains nothing from a progressive fad that would suck up resources for the benefit of a fraction of one percent of the state’s citizens. The answers is a definitive no. A million times, no. It is not more important than any other priority.
There is no sustainable upside beyond a partisan victory on what amounts to a vanity project. Even if you are a smitten bride waiting at the Climate Cult altar; the money wasted to develop and sustain commuter rail for New Hampshire could be wasted far more effectively on any other number of your dopey projects.
There is no scenario in which ‘commuter rail’ is a better investment for the environment, transportation, people, our economy, or even your progressive egos. It deprives every other potential priority we can imagine of resources and wastes taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars.
You want the crappy MBTA, move to Massachusetts. If you stay, stop wasting other people’s money on your choo-choo fetish and let it go.
Everyone else, please encourage Gov. Sununu to veto SB 241.
You can also sign a petition to that end here.
| Extensive Research and links available here.
Update: Links fixed
