Michigan Moronrail: Let's Talk About Choo-Choos for $100 Million Dollars

High-speed rail is a Democrat fever-dream they just can't give up on.  They problem is their only answer for their fever is instead of more cowbell is more of your tax dollars.

MLive.com: High-speed rail a $100m conversation starter in early Michigan budget 

The state Senate’s initial budget proposal for the Michigan Department of Transportation, which a committee on Tuesday passed to the full legislature for negotiations, includes $100 million “to encourage high-speed rail development.”

The catch, however, is that this number, which represents more than 14% of MDOT’s proposed budget increase, is “just trying to start the conversation,” says the lawmaker who took point on crafting the Senate’s transportation proposal for fiscal year 2023-24.

$100 Million to "spark a  conversation" about high-speed rail,  Not build it mind you, but to talk about and study it.

Given the stupidly high cost of Michigan's road repairs, that $100 million is about 100 miles of roads that could have been fixed for this money earmarked to study and "spark a conversation" about trains. Still, 100 miles of rebuilt roads is nothing to sneeze at and far more worthy than sending the money to discuss  high speed rail.

 Of course they want it to move leftists to places they like:

One proposal MARP has given lawmakers would expand passenger rail service into and out of Detroit, and another would create a route that goes from Ann Arbor to Traverse City and Petoskey.

Yep a subsidized a high-speed route for well-off leftists to travel between Ann Arbor and their cottages in Petoskey/Traverse City.  Maybe we can  name it the SWPL Rail Line - assuming it ever gets built for less than a few billion. 

I'd instead propose talking to them to about the cautionary tale of California's cost overrun budget-busting experience with building or in reality not building High Speed rail . I might also explain how California has a larger population to support such a project and they can't even make it work - except for the lovely amount of graft and pay that has been making its way to Democrat constituencies in the process. 

I'd even have an in depth "conversation" for a heckuva lot less than $100 Million dollars.

Places The New York Times Likes

Yes, the number one place the New York Times recommends its readers visit this year out of its list of 52 destinations is: Canada. Yes the entire country. Apparently they couldn't narrow it down to a city like they did the rest of their list (with the exception of naming all of Botswana and Cyprus, but they could drill down to little towns in France for example and Hamburg in Germany rather than the entire country for some reason).

The NY Times did helpfully explain they deliberately didn't put London, Tokyo or Berlin on their list as they were too obvious in terms of travel destinations, but a rather large country immediately to our north on which we are on friendly terms, speak the relatively same language and is at a helluva discount considering the exchange rate is not obvious at all.

I guess that's so their readers can make it a preparatory visit to move there along with all the celebs and pundits that claimed they'd move there if Trump won, yes? After all, the twiterrati that all promised to move there seem to be having trouble finding it.

As another reflection on the wisdom and excellence of their must-go places in 2017, in ninth place they name as a top travel destination: Detroit.

Detroit's Expensive M1 Rail To Nowhere Gets A Quixotic New Name

With much fanfare the 3.3 mile, $137-million-dollar-to-build streetcar on Woodward in downtown Detroit has just received a new name.

It's neither a catchy nor inspiring name, but more of a "named after our sponsor" sorta thing, and many aren't particularly thrilled with it, particularly those of the bien-pensant progressive class of Detroit:

The Detroit Free Press: QLINE could have been named with nod toward better transit

Mind you, for truth in advertising, and to fully link it to Detroit, all they had to do was add one letter that would sum up Detroit nicely and just call it the: DQLINE.

Even Shinier Than Light Rail - Its Bus Rapid Transit!

In the continuing effort to regionalize Detroit's expenses and wastage on the suburbs, there's a new push for a new tax on the region to support a rapid bus transit system. SWPL types love the idea of regional rapid transit, even when it costs a ton and goes nowhere either useful nor fast.

Note that rapid in this case means an estimate of 35 mph on these large buses to nowhere. Estimates of course tend to be optimistic at best compared to reality.

The Detroit News: Metro Detroit tax touted to fuel rapid bus system

Cleveland's experience shows it took 10 years to develop and $200 million to build a 6.8 mile system. At around 28.5 million per mile, its rather spendy, especially for the planned route in Detroit. Also Cleveland, as much as it pains me to say it, is a tad more vibrant and functional than the dysfunctional D.

At the cost of $200 million the system could buy and give away 7,300 Chevy Volts (likely 1 per rider of this boondoggle), and cause the SWPL types to swoon in happiness at the thought of electric car sharing, not to mention offering a lot more flexibility, but less opportunity for graft and corruption.

Of course Detroit's BRT backers, not ones to think small, want to spend $500 million on a system. The money they expect to raise will be from a handy regional tax of course.

At some point the suburbs will have enough of this regional tax approach to pay for Detroit projects and the results of Detroit squandering its resources. The suburbs are already bailing out the Detroit Zoo and DIA, and asking them to pay for Detroit's latest expensive vapid yet rapid transit dreams may prove to be a bit too much.

Detroit: Since it didn't work last time, lets do it again, but bigger.

The Detroit News: Lessons from the People Mover

he rail system circles downtown Detroit and was built in 1987 on the theory that it would help fill office buildings and draw new restaurants, residents and retail outlets. It was also supposed to connect to hoped-for subway and rail lines.

But like many government projects built without regard for a return on investment, the People Mover never delivered on its promise.

Ridership never reached the 12 million annual passengers predicted before it opened, let alone the 20 million needed to break even. So the city has kicked in huge subsidies to keep if from shutting down and standing as yet another reminder of Detroit's struggles.

Read that last paragraph again.

Detroit knew it would take 20 million riders for the People Mover just to break even and they opened it predicting it would get 12 million and then it didn't even reach that. It was opened with a prediction that it would lose money, but they under-predicted the loss. Currently the city is subsidizing each rider's trip by $2.

This is known as Governmental Math: "We lose money on every rider, but we make it up in volume!"

So they're going to do it again, only bigger, using federal transit dollars as well as some private investors and city money:

Detroit is now moving ahead with plans to build a light rail system up Woodward Avenue from downtown. It's an ambitious project funded with private and federal dollars.

Once again, the promise is that the rail line will hasten downtown's recovery and spark pockets of development around the stations.

It's an enticing project. But we hope the city will be more realistic in its ridership estimates, as well as projections of spin-off economic benefits, before taking on annual operating subsidies that could dwarf what it takes to keep the People Mover-to-nowhere spinning nearly empty cars around downtown.

Any bets on who gets to cough up the annual subsidy when the rail line fails to reach the break-even point?