Commuter rail Archives - Page 2 of 2

Quick Shot: Reminder for Public Transit Rail Junkies – Your Fix Never Gets Less Expensive

January 29, 2019January 29, 2019 Steve MacDonald

Commuter rail for New Hampshire is probably one the stupidest ideas on which the left will not give up. There is no sensible application but one. Help New Hampshire residents leave the Granite State to work in Massachusettes. It has no practical application for us. Most of the state lives nowhere near it. Will never … Read more

The Latest Chapter in Nashua “Privately Funded” Rail Fantasy

October 1, 2022January 8, 2019 Steve MacDonald

The subheading to the Union Leader article reads “In 2017, the city took steps to explore bringing privately-funded passenger rail service to Nashua.” What follows is reporting about the release of a 30-page report. An impossible dream that was unmasked on Granitegrok in 2017 when Nashua first embraced it.

Nashua Mayor Asks For 4 Million From Surplus None of it For Commuter Rail

September 26, 2018August 14, 2018 Steve MacDonald

I guess there are bigger priorities in Nashua than “Choo Choo.” Capital equipment. Playgrounds. Sidewalks. A few ‘plants’ to spiffy up the joint. Work on a community center. Repurposing technology and updating an online dashboard so residents can access information from about city projects and initiatives. Like choo choo?

Nashua has four million dollars (leftover) and not a penny of it earmarked for another rail study.

They did earmark some to remove invasive species. No, not out-of-state Massachusetts voters living in Dem. Rep. Cindy Rosenwald’s house; plants by the river, or something.

So-Called ‘Free Money’ for Rail Study Yanked From New Hampshire Transportation Plan

September 26, 2018May 7, 2018 Steve MacDonald

In late April the NH Senate pulled a four million dollar rail study line-item out of the State’s ten-year transportation budget. The Senate passed the amended version, denying the choo-choo fetishists yet another expensive act of engineering voyeurism.

The advocates for waste, fraud, and abuse were not happy.

Rail Propaganda Campaign Approved By NH Executive Council

September 26, 2018June 6, 2013 Steve MacDonald

If a big pharmaceutical company was given $40,000.00 by the New Hampshire’s Executive Council to advertise the benefits of a drug therapy that had not only not yet been approved but was not even known to be viable, would people be up in arms about that? I think they probably would. So how about some outrage over this?

The New Hampshire Executive Council, by a vote of 4 – 1, has just spent $40,000.00 so that the NH-DOT and the New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority can hire…

“… a consultant for the sole purpose of public outreach and public relations to increase the public awareness of the mission of the NHRTA … and to educate the public on the benefits of rail as part of a comprehensive multi-modal transportation system, both statewide and specifically within the N.H. Capital Corridor.”

The NHRTA’s sole reason for existing is to develop commuter rail in the Granite State without regard for long term costs, efficiency, or even need, all questions which have been answered time and again, but not to the satisfaction of proponents because the answers were not favorable to their cause.

Commuter Rail in NH Is a Fools Errand

September 26, 2018February 5, 2013 Steve MacDonald

I don’t typically link to the Concord Fish Wrapper, but this is worth the trip. I am a retired highway engineer and transportation planner with more than 36 years of experience in eight states and Washington, D.C. My opinions are based on experience, 42 years of transportation policy observations and objective study of publicly available … Read more

The Ideological Left’s Equivalent of a Gold-Digging Trophy-Wife

September 26, 2018January 22, 2013 Steve MacDonald

I’ve been blogging this subject for years because at every opportunity Democrats (and a handful of Republicans) resurrect the notion that running a commuter rail line into and or up through the Nashua-Concord corridor would be good for something.

That’s like saying “hey doc just leave the endoscope in my colon, that way the next time I need it, it will already be there.”

It is damn near the biggest waste of time and money we could imagine, destined to become nothing more than a fiscal albatross that bleeds us dry, and yet like some three-year old who relentlessly carpet bombs you in the ten-items-or-less aisle with ear-piercing screams until you relent and buy them that chocolate bar, the mass-transit zombies you thought you’d put down keep getting back up so they can eat your brains.

Commuter rail is as useless in New Hampshire as a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest and whose only possible value (and I use that word very loosely) is as the ideological lefts equivalent of a gold-digging trophy wife you can never divorce–that’s more expensive, and paid for by you whether you use it, need it, ever see it, or not

“Psst! Hey Buddy. Want to Buy A Train?”

September 26, 2018April 18, 2011 Steve MacDonald

What he meant was that if we added commuter rail “there would be more spending than we could even contemplate at this point.”

Death To Rail (Bride Of RTA)

September 26, 2018April 1, 2011 Steve MacDonald

This is what we call the tits-on-a-bull defense. 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.

Democrats, Trains And HB 218

September 26, 2018February 13, 2011 Steve MacDonald

De railed The Union Leader has a great editorial in this mornings Sunday News titled "Free Trains." It is great for several reasons the least of which is that it mirrors concerns I have been expressing for years. That no matter who pays to build them, someone has to pay to keep them. That would be New Hampshire Taxpayers. But Democrats are aghast that the NH House would dissolve the New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority–the head of a beast seeking to force commuter rail upon us–because hey it doesn’t cost anything.

But it does cost and it could lead to something that costs us even more in the future. A lot more.

December 2009 at NH Insider – I hit it out of the park when someone compared road taxes to rail taxes.

Passenger rail costs are not limited to the root infrastructure itself. That would be rails versus roads. Taxpayers would have to subsidize passenger rail-cars, fuel the cars, maintain the cars, probably pay the workers and their benefits, and support the entire system when it fails to turn a profit, which will be always and probably forever. While roads have some other infrastructure nothing compares to rail.

In contrast people buy their own cars, and pay for their own fuel and maintenance. They may buy the car to get to a job that’s probably not funded by taxpayers either. (Except in Concord) Taxpayers do not need to subsidize any of that where with rail we’re supporting all of it. So there is no possible apples to apples comparison to road and rail taxes.

The state also makes a lot of money on registration fees and fuel taxes for road vehicles, tolls and license plates, and some towns rely so heavily on registration fees that even minor reductions can cause budget issues. Passenger rail offers no comparable net increase in revenues and in all likely hood a net loss. So Passenger rail risks reducing revenues and increasing tax obligations for no significant greater good.

Read the whole thing here.

But that’s hardly the most pressing point about the ongoing illusion of free commuter rail…

De-Railed?

September 26, 2018May 21, 2010 Steve MacDonald

This editorial from today’s Union Leader on Commuter Rail caught my attention. PETER BURLING, head of the New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority (NHRTA), was in Manchester this week to promote his dream of building a commuter rail line from Concord to Boston. He suggested that operating commuter rail would cost taxpayers less than maintaining the … Read more

Railroad rails commuter rail original Photo by Gonzalo Facello on Unsplash

The Real “Third Rail” For Commuter Rail

February 18, 2022February 21, 2010 Steve MacDonald

Any good liberal will tell you this. Never talk about how much something costs or who will have to pay for it until you have convinced them it will be good for them.