Washington, D.C. has been struggling to build a streetcar system for the better part of a decade.
They’ve managed to establish a single line that doesn’t reach its intended destination, and a car barn for repairs and maintenance that will cost 4 times what it should. But the elected officials of the city refuse to abandon the idea after sinking $200 million into it.
If there was a way to connect this street car line with Jerry Brown’s high speed rail boondoggle, life would be good.
Lefty Washington State has a few comparable boondoggles, maybe worse than this. Some weird little tram/trolley in Tacoma that they’ve been talking about for 15 years. It actually exists now, I think. Taking people from some random place to another random place downtown. Bureaucrats pulling in 80-120k a year to ponder it for decades.
The stupid streetcars are popping up everywhere due to Agenda 21, which has been renamed Agenda 2030 (the new name gives you some perspective on the timing for accomplishing Agenda 21 goals). By 2030 we will be living in our new socialist utopia, under global governance. And we’ll be herded like cattle onto our lotto street cars, going only where the street cars will take us.
Little street cars, not lotto. Gosh how I miss that edit feature.
The Chinese can throw projects like these together in about 4 months. Granted, they need foreign consultation a lot of the time, but so be it.
DC already has a subterranean train metro rail line that works just fine. Why on Earth would they need something to clog up the existing roadways?
We’ll never be clean from the filth of crony fascist capitalism until we kill all who are involved from the assholes that propose them to the asshats that fund them.
Good grief, even New York doesn’t screw up mass transit to this degree
The only thing that can stop it now is a refugee widow.
Preferably, that connection would be a crossing with no signals.
No, lotto is about right, as all the riders play lotto, and lotto money–along with fed grants–funds the streetcars.
Or around the Horn of Africa.
Cincinnati is pulling the same crap right now.
DC had a trolley system. They dug it up and shit-canned it because it was stupid, and outdated for the times. The trolleys couldn’t compete with the independently-owned bus companies. They socialized the bus companies because the bus drivers didn’t like being raped, robbed, and murdered – and the bus companies avoided those parts of town. So they came up with the Metro system, based on Paris, France’s 19th century subway system, supported by busses. They just keep piling stupidity upon stupidity.
In fact, I believe there’s still a law on the books forbidding the shooting of rabbits from the trolleys.
Except for places like San Francisco, where they are a major tourist draw, streetcars are a thing of the past. And there’s a slew of reasons why they went away, one of the major ones (besides being more expensive than buses) is that people tend not to use them if they have other alternatives.
My current job allows me to see many gov’t projects at the initial stage. I can assure you that every project that has crossed my desk has specs that have requirements that add money to the project and have no real world benefit . So every time I hear some gov’t idiot claim they need more money I scream ” you don’t need any more of my money, you need to spend what you have wisely”
A school bus service garage I quoted cost 30-40% more due to specs that would never been included in someone who was buying his own building to work on trucks. tell me how the bus mechanic or bus could tell the difference from joe mechanic servicing your truck.
My church was adding an educational wing on our building, the cost was 3. million for 18 classrooms. At the same time a local gradeschool was adding 9 classrooms at a cost of 6 million.
Do the math that is a factor of 4 difference per classroom cost.
Try to justify that you grubbers of my tax dollars.
Madison just told Milwaukee ‘Son, you’re on you’re own’ after its streetcar line is built. No state money for operations, cost over-runs, maintenance, etc.
The main focus being “destroy the independence of the citizens” will look like that.
Smartness is not involved in the process.
Besides, GM destroyed mass transit after buying the lines up and ripping out the rails.