SENATE BILL: Transportation Infrastructure Investment Act (Law'd)

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Didn't we pass a high speed rail bill a year ago, which covered a bunch of cities?

I think I had some provisions in my bill a while ago, but I could be wrong. It may have been expansion of the highway system. I think bgwah had a similar bill as well. I favor a bill like this as long as it isn't redundant. I know Texas has not been covered, but I believe some of the major southern hubs were. Again, I could be wrong.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I support this utterly... we need to start looking at nation-building projects.

I agree. My point is merely making sure we aren't repeating projects already in progress.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

None of these routes are inter-regional. If a region wants high speed rail, why not just let them do it? That would prevent us from doing several projects at once that may or may not be important to the people that live there.

Something I would favor would be to designate X number of dollars to the regional governments with provisions for use on mass transit projects. The only problem with this would be whether some reasons would have the capacity to build out these projects without capital from the federal government. I would assume my home region would not, but I'll let the Emperor speak for himself.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I agree with shua in part on this bill. I think outside of building these facilities, we need to give people incentives to use them. As it stands, it is cheaper to fly from NY to Washington than it is to take a high speed train. How will demand for these rail systems be such that they will make financial sense in the future? Especially obscure lines in the midwest, where mass transit is very sparse outside of Chicago and a few other places? We could conceivable build these and watch them be money losers for a long, long time.

How do we create demand for these things? I don't know.

Don't get me wrong though. I have been a big proponent of rail systems in the past, authored a bill and voted for these as well. I just do not want to saturate the market for them, because it still is small at the moment outside of anywhere but the Northeast. Perhaps "if we build them, they will come" rings true here, but I think we should tread cautiously before dumping billions into the project in places like Iowa and Nebraska.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I think the amendment passes.

I propose

5. $8 billion will be distributed among the regions by the DoIA for the repair, expansion, or construction of rapid bus lines in metropolitan areas.

Aye, a fine idea.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Interest rates would be extremely low in this case anyway, so I would not have a problem with the federal government picking up the bill for the regions. If we are going to go through with these projects, we need to develop some incentive based system for people to actually use them or at least keep the trip costs down. Otherwise, we are spending a lot of money for no reason. Perhaps, if we can afford it, have the feds subsidize the ticket costs in some form or fashion so they are no longer more expensive than taking an airplane.