# CNN: "U.S. high-speed rail 'myths' debunked"



## SCrails (Apr 13, 2011)

I'll have to read this in detail later...too busy at work right now.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/04/13/high.speed.rail.fact.check/


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## Tony (Apr 13, 2011)

SCrails said:


> Highways and other modes of transportation, like the airlines, are heavily subsidized, too."
> 
> Expert response: Not true


OK, where exactly are all these American highways, who's construction and maintenance is not ever subsidized by our taxes? :angry:


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## Ryan (Apr 13, 2011)

That's a gross misrepresentation of what was said there.

"Not True" refers to the original comment:



> "There are NO high speed rail projects in the world that are profitable. None. They are all taxpayer/government subsidized." -- CNN.com user "aksdad"


The expert response in full:



> Expert response: Not true
> Reps. John Mica, R-Florida, chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pennsylvania, chairman of the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials: "While many high-speed rail systems in the world rely on a government subsidy, this in no way means that rail operations cannot be profitable.


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## ALC Rail Writer (Apr 13, 2011)

This is a very poorly written article...


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## ALC Rail Writer (Apr 13, 2011)

I'm surprised that the congressmen listed are considered "experts", apparently all you need to do to be an "expert" anymore is be a politician.


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## SCrails (Apr 13, 2011)

ALC_Rail_Writer said:


> I'm surprised that the congressmen listed are considered "experts", apparently all you need to do to be an "expert" anymore is be a politician.


I was taken aback at that, also. But I liked two things about the article: 1) it documents a more reasoned conversation about rail; and 2) two Republican legislators contributed who aren't virulently anti-rail.


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## Eric S (Apr 13, 2011)

ALC_Rail_Writer said:


> This is a very poorly written article...


And very awkwardly organized as well.


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## Tony (Apr 13, 2011)

Ryan said:


> That's a gross misrepresentation of what was said there.


No, I quoted it in exact order it appeared. No misrepresentation was made at all, let alone gross.

I quoted the statement about other subsidies, and then entire Expert Response paragraph (short as it was) that immediately followed it. I think that any one reading that article, would clearly take such a strong rebuttal, to reflect against the statement made that was just made.


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## MattW (Apr 13, 2011)

I don't think the article is quite as bad as you guys are all implying. While the organization with the typesetting and all could be improved, I actually think it's a pretty reasonable article. Hopefully, since it's on a mainstream not-Fox news network, more people will realize that HSR isn't the white-elephant boondoggle politicians and anti-rail jerks like to lead us to believe.

(I REALLY need to memorize my password for this site  )


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## ALC Rail Writer (Apr 13, 2011)

Eric S said:


> ALC_Rail_Writer said:
> 
> 
> > This is a very poorly written article...
> ...


Indeed.


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## Ryan (Apr 13, 2011)

It's clearly what was meant. The article featured several "expert responses" to a single user submitted comment.

You excerpted a part of the "expert response", if you read the whole thing it's bleedingly obvious that it's not talking about highway subsidies.


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## jis (Apr 13, 2011)

Tony said:


> Ryan said:
> 
> 
> > That's a gross misrepresentation of what was said there.
> ...


So from your comment above it appears that you still don't understand the somewhat confusing and odd structure of the article. The entire quote carrying the full context for that piece that you quoted would be:



> *Profitable?* _[My comment: This is the overall context]_
> 
> *Comment:* "There are NO high speed rail projects in the world that are profitable. None. They are all taxpayer/government subsidized." -- CNN.com user "aksdad" _[My comment: This is what CNN.com user commented]_
> 
> ...


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## GlobalistPotato (Apr 13, 2011)

It's a really noobish article; meaning that it doesn't touch on the really important points and it wrote the article in a way that makes it confusing to a reader that doesn't know about HSR.

Some arguements they left out:

People won't ride trains.

People won't ride trains unless the project is super expensive

People won't ride conventional speed trains

People won't want to pay for true HSR

Intercity rail won't work until there are feeder lines in the cities and suburbs.

Intracity rail is more important than Intercity rail

Amtrak can't be the provider of true HSR

The whole "Population density" argument...

Funding such a line or system is a political nightmare.

People confusing metric with imperial when referencing the speed of high speed trains around the world.

People overestimating the extent of foreign HSR networks and which countries have them.

HSR isn't as environmentally friendly as conventional speed rail.

Intercity rail isn't useful to most people as Intracity rail is.

We don't have the money to build an Intercity rail network.

Trains are an outdated 19th century technology.


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## George Harris (Apr 14, 2011)

Globalist, I hope you do not believe any of those nonsensical arguements you just listed.


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## GlobalistPotato (Apr 14, 2011)

George Harris said:


> Globalist, I hope you do not believe any of those nonsensical arguements you just listed.


I don't. I listed them and recommended they be featured because there are people who believe those arguments.


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## cnyrider (Apr 21, 2011)

Another commentary from the CNN site about high speed trains. It was written by a faculty member at the University of Dayton and posted this morning. Sorry if this is in another thread and I missed it.

"Why all the anger over high speed trains?"

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/21/harrod.high.speed.rail.trains/index.html?hpt=T2


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## cnyrider (May 9, 2011)

Here's a link to a commentary from U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter (from New York State) about high-speed trains. This was in the May 9th Syracuse Post-Standard.

http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2011/05/mondays_commentary_rep_louise.html

And a link to the editorial that appeared in that paper on April 26th. Representative Slaughter mentioned this editorial in her commentary.

http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2011/04/high-speed_rail_albany_should.html

I don't know if the Post-Standard puts things in an archive that requires payment to access the pieces after a period of time. For now, however, the links should work without any problem.


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