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IronLionZion

(45,164 posts)
Sat Feb 16, 2019, 01:07 PM Feb 2019

Why Trump wants you to be afraid of high speed trains

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/16/politics/high-speed-trains-trump/index.html

(CNN)In President Donald Trump's world, Democrats are after your cars and want to force everyone onto trains.

"I really don't like their policy of taking away your car, of taking away your airplane rights, of 'let's hop a train to California,'" he said during a speech in El Paso, Texas, this past week, drawing a predictable chorus of boos.

He was talking about the Democrats' Green New Deal proposal, but it was a complete mischaracterization of what's actually in the plan, recently introduced by freshman New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey. It suggests new US investment in high speed rail, as a cleaner alternative to automobile and air traffic.
But that wasn't the only time the President dunked on rail this week.

Trump wasted no time making fun of California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who announced in his State of the State address Tuesday that he was going to scale back a massive planned high speed rail project. The train might ultimately carry passengers from megalopolis of Los Angeles to the metro area that includes both Silicon Valley and San Francisco, but for now, Newsom said, they're just going to focus on the line from Bakersfield (population: 380,000) to Merced (population: 83,000).

"The whole project is a 'green' disaster," Trump said on Twitter, and demanded that California return $3.5 billion in funding for the project that was first doled out as part of the 2009 federal stimulus meant to kickstart the country out of the Great Recession.
The President loves to hate on California. He's trashed the state's wilderness management practices, suggesting its forests should be raked to prevent wildfires, he's criticized the state and its cities for protecting undocumented immigrants. His policies are at odds with California's opposition to offshore drilling, its emissions standards for cars, its legalized marijuana and more.


And his deplorable supporters live in rural areas that won't benefit much from trains.

Those evil socialists are coming to take away your cars and planes!
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Why Trump wants you to be afraid of high speed trains (Original Post) IronLionZion Feb 2019 OP
To understand High Speed Rail Wellstone ruled Feb 2019 #1
 

Wellstone ruled

(34,661 posts)
1. To understand High Speed Rail
Sat Feb 16, 2019, 02:14 PM
Feb 2019

one has to understand what is necessary for this to happen. Virgin Atlantic is in the process of doing a High Speed Project from Victorville to Vegas. Right of way is the toughest part of the Project. This Project will be on mostly BLM controlled Land and there for void of Union Pacific Rails. Who's ownership is one of Trump's big money supporters.

Some what fimiliar with just how messy it gets dealing with Freight Rails when it comes to Commuter Rail Establishing a Viable service system. Ask anyone who had any contact with the establishing of the North Star System in the Twin Cities. That took a collection of Rail Fans, and Business and Industry folks to pull that off.







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