The Associated Press

NORFOLK, Va. —

Amtrak will begin passenger rail service to Norfolk by the end of the year.

Gov. Bob McDonnell’s office said Wednesday that the service will begin by Dec. 31, which is 10 months earlier than originally projected.

 

Yes, what a boondoggle! Iffy from the start! Would never work here.

I am SHOCKED! Absolutely STUNNED! California HSR in jeopardy? NO! IMPOSSIBLE! I refuse to believe it.

Listen, I am damned sorry to see it. Everything is against sensible transportation in America, including the people who are its supposed backers.

Whatever happened to the Texas High Speed Rail Authority and the Texas T-Bone? They met in Little Rock a couple of years ago. Plenty of video from Dean International and the Authority. Do a search.

As I said before, the only people who are getting any benefit out of American high speed rail are the consultants to projects that will never be built. Not one mile of true HSR will ever be constructed in the United States.

Talk about biased reporting. This is a blatant editorial masquerading as a news story, and, yes, I am aware that it contains an element of truth. Why not stick with the facts instead of the typical right-wing punch list of imagined shortcomings of America’s favorite whipping boy, Amtrak. And if anybody ought to know that the northeast corridor is not profitable, it should be Bloomberg.

A year later, it turns out refusing $810 million from the federal government to overhaul Wisconsin’s rail was still a bad idea. The Legislature recently approved $31.6 million to be spent on the Amtrak line from Milwaukee to Chicago. That amount won’t cover all the necessary costs either, with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporting that costs could balloon to $99 million. All of these costs would have been covered by the federal grant that was turned down last year by Gov. Scott Walker.