In my book workable and low cost beats cool and expensive any day. I just wish others saw the world that way.
We would buy used cars, and modest homes. And we wouldn’t line up to buy the iPhone X.
Yet all of these pale in comparison to the waste of government (as voted by the people) especially when it comes to public transportation. For some reason all reason goes out the window when it comes to voting on expanding public transportation, especially trains. In Denver we have a light rail system that can’t break even, so it only makes sense to expand it and replace bus lines (that break even and are faster) with light rail that is slower and more expensive.
BUT IT LOOKS COOL.
In California, a state that is essentially broke, the residents voted to raise taxes and borrow money to put in a high speed train from .LA. to San Francisco. Never mind that you can fly between the two cities for less than $250 round trip pretty much any time you want, and for $120 on a super saver fare. A high speed train ticket won’t be much cheaper if at all, and California will be another $70 Billion in debt. For $70 Billion dollars you could provide every individual in the US 200 free round trip flights from LA to San Francisco. Or put another way you could make flights free between the two cities for the next 11,000 YEARS (yes I assumed 0% growth in capacity but if it makes you happy double capacity and cut the time for free flights to 6,500 years).
Common sense and basic math don’t seem to matter when it comes to cool and hip and honestly that’s fine for the iPhone but just plain stupid for trains in the US.
~John