Sharp as a Marble - The Two Million, Three Hundred and Sixty Four Thousand dollar post title

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The Two Million, Three Hundred and Sixty Four Thousand dollar post title

Politics

In the time it takes to read this post title aloud, you could have earned that amount of money if you were Raleigh, North Carolina

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP/WBTV) – North Carolina transportation officials say they’ve reached an agreement that will allow them to obtain $461 million in federal grants to improve train service.

…

Officials say the new service would cut travel time from Charlotte to Raleigh to less than three hours, even with seven stops along the way. However, the ride will only be 13 minutes faster.

Dear Governor Scott, thank you for not wasting tax payers dollars with the stupid high speed rail project here in Florida. This is the type of governmental incompetence we would be seeing down the road.

posted @ 3/23/2011 7:43:59 PM

Incoming Links

Weer'd World Â» Expensive Bad Ideas on 3/24/2011 8:58:20 PM

Comments

Tom says:

on 3/23/2011 10:09:11 PM

WE ARE NOT EUROPE, WE DON'T WANT TRAINS!

Rustmeister says:

on 3/23/2011 10:39:52 PM

And here I thought you were braggin' on page views. =)

Sean D Sorrentino says:

on 3/23/2011 11:00:30 PM

Yeah, that crap pisses me off. There are elements of the NC General Assembly that are working on a law that will force the Gov to refuse the money.

I mean, who the hell wants to ride Amtrack from here to Charlotte?

Sean D Sorrentino says:

on 3/24/2011 12:05:05 AM

Ok Robb, this is how stupid this project is.
Let's assume 25 MPG, and $3.50 a gallon for gas.

Raleigh to Charlotte is 170 miles. That's 6.8 gallons of gas, and $23.80. Double that for a round trip, and you have $47.60.

$461million divided by $47.60 is 9,684,873.95.

The total population of North Carolina(per 2010 census)is 9,545,483.

That means that the $461 million could be divvied up among the state population and each and every person in the state (including children) could drive from Raleigh to Charlotte and back, with money left over.

Sean D Sorrentino says:

on 3/24/2011 12:10:15 AM

Of course since not everyone in NC lives in Raleigh or Charlotte, let's just take the people in the two cities' Combined Statistical Areas.

Adding both together you get 4,132,381 (per wiki) Divide $461 million by the above number and you get $111.56, which is enough to exchange the populations of the two CSAs 5 times. (again, assuming 25 mpg, $3.50 a gallon gas, and one person per car)

V65Magnafan says:

on 3/24/2011 7:34:03 AM

I'm relieved to see that some folks in The U.S. are as boneheaded as the city council of Toronto.

$106 million for four miles of streetcar right-of-way on a commercial street. It took years to construct. Many businesses on the route went bankrupt.

They now have one traffic lane in each direction on a major artery.

From end to end of the new construction, it saves the rider two minutes.

Emergency vehicles are impeded because the track bed is raised several inches. And (Toronto. Canada.) there's no place to put the snow.

Ah, but it looks European!

(BTW: I'm an American who appreciates North Carolina and who is currently residing in ---Toronto. Got to this site via NC Gun Blog)

Weer'd Beard says:

on 3/24/2011 7:37:11 AM

As a former commuter rail rider, and husband of a current rider, I'll point out that 13 minuets is handily inside the margin of error for rail services, this could easily be consistently 20 mins SLOWER how they run things.

And of course this is not taking into account the state and federal subsidies this money sink will need annually to keep the choo-choo a chuggin'.

And I dunno about NC but here in Mass the T workers get outrageous pensions.

Heartless Libertarian says:

on 3/24/2011 3:06:31 PM

BTW...Google Maps lists the drive time from Charlotte to Raleigh as 2 hrs, 43 minutes.

So it won't save time, would make you a slave to the train schedule, you wouldn't have a car to get around either city once you get there, and it probably won't save you any money, either.

AuricTech says:

on 3/24/2011 5:44:01 PM

In the time it takes to read this post title aloud, you could have looted that amount of money if you were Raleigh, North Carolina

FTFY.

Comments have been closed on this topic.