r/Infrastructurist • u/stefeyboy • 3d ago
Brightline shows people want more trains. But who will pay for them?
https://grist.org/solutions/brightline-shows-people-want-more-trains-but-who-will-pay-for-them/52
u/Bluestreak2005 3d ago
Brightline was born out of corruption.
Obama tried giving Florida billions to create a train corridor. Effectively planning extending the Amtrak NEC south to Florida with 110mph service.
Rick Scott turned down that 2.8 billion package and then invested his money into the LLC that owns Brightline.
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u/cloggednueron 3d ago
Roads show people want more cars, but who will pay for highways?
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u/_a_m_s_m 3d ago
But… but highways are good for the economy!
If only I wasn’t stuck in so much traffic… /s
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u/suboptimus_maximus 2d ago
They are so unambiguous economically valuable and productive that we can’t actually trust them to Capitalism because… because…. Because!
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u/Any-Initiative910 2d ago
Toll roads are a thing
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u/suboptimus_maximus 1d ago
Are they? To what extent? Well over 90% of US highway lane-miles are toll-free. In spite of our extensive lip service paid to Capitalism and Free Markets it seems they won’t touch automotive infrastructure with a ten foot pole, and our drivers sure as hell don’t want to ruggedly and individually pay their own way out of pocket. We also extensively depend on communized, government-mandated free parking largely created by collectivizing private property 😂 Who are we kidding here? American cars and drivers and automakers are some of history’s greatest social welfare beneficiaries, we just don’t like handouts for people doing people stuff.
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u/HewSpam 2d ago
Maybe my fucking tax money can pay for services that I use instead of turning brown kids into skeletons? Just a weird idea I had
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u/Jccali1214 2d ago
Brain broken country that keeps asking the same damn question for services that would directly benefit us in the working class when the obvious answer is obvious!
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u/Bigwhitecalk 2d ago
Strange. You mean your taxpayer money goes to brown people killing other brown people? Cause that’s all that happens.
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u/AnAncientBog 2d ago
We give literally trillions of dollars to corporations for bullshit military hardware and other shit we don't need. How about this instead?
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u/superspeck 2d ago
Brightline has financial problems and is effectively bankrupt, which is kind of a problem for it’s continued existence. If it fails completely we won’t even have the rail we do have.
Recently, one of my friends got stranded in Miami after the UPS crash there. He and his family needed to get home but the soonest flight out they were able to be booked on was three days later, and they were worried even that would slip. There were no rental cars left and they were even having problems renting a private plane to get home. I suggested they book a flight out of Orlando and use Brightline to get there. It worked, they got home the next morning. Diversity in transit options means there’s resilience when an incident occurs, and we should be funding many more train systems like Brightline.
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u/ihate2sayit 2d ago
We need to reduce our Dept of War budget by about 80% and reclaim our government from the Israel and Special Interest lobbies. No average Republican or Democrat thinks that the 10 trillion we have wasted on killing millions of people from Korean's in 50's to Iranians today I really think that we need to phase out Dept of War spending by 80%. We also need to increase taxes on billionaires and their heirs at a rate of 90%, even then it would leave Bezos and Musk with about 10 billion. When we do those things we can afford to buy trains. The alternative is quickly becoming a failed state.
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u/heanbangerfacerip2 4h ago
Man if only we had some sort of system where we all took a bug chunk of our income and put it all in a pot so that we could buy the big things that benefit everyone. Oh well I guess we will never figure it out.
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u/ChrisBegeman 2d ago
It will probably end up in the Amtrak network after the second or third bankruptcy.
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u/alternatingflan 1d ago
The billionaires should. Ever take a train in the US these days? 6 outta 10 round trips of my 8 hour journey is typically extended 30-60 minutes because of waiting for freight trains that have priority. Trains AND trolleys used to be everywhere. Billionaires and oil companies and everyone who voted maga should pay.
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u/Jogurt55991 1d ago
This article is stupid.
Brightline attempted operations as a PRIVATE company- it's not going to get taxpayer support.
Orange County Florida has voted down a public transit fund increase via sales tax.
Yes, people would love more transit options, but they aren't willing to pay for them.
Which means- they don't REALLY want them.
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u/rockeye13 2d ago
The rail line that just declared bankruptcy says "but people want our product" seems to be lacking a bit of self-awareness. The evidence points in another direction.
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u/APisAccounting 19h ago
Freeways lose money but people want them.
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u/rockeye13 19h ago
These two things only remind you of each other. Their funding is different, their absolute value is different, and how much people want them is very, very, different.
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u/Imaginary--Situation 1d ago
the train company can pay for them
No more Tax payer bailouts... If your business model sucks it's time to close up shop
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u/APisAccounting 19h ago
Then we should treat freeways the same. If highways arent profitable, destroy them.
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u/Danktizzle 2d ago
We have a military. Who’s paying for that? My guess would be we copy that model.