I found this piece in The Tech, MIT's student newspaper. I could not take quietly the cheap shot at the end of the article and I sent this message to the editor.
I have a few comments about the piece Derail the High Speed Rail
I think that the analysis in this piece would have been much more illuminating if the author included some statistics about how much the truly high speed rails (in France, Germany and Japan) do reduce the congestion. Only then one could begin to understand whether these investments make sense or not. Compared to the French TGV at 200mph + our high speed rail looks like an over caffeinated nag. The author has a broad analysis of costs, but only a skinny one on the benefits. I assume that the construction of the Subway System was not cheap, but I believe it does reduce the congestion. It is difficult to imagine how New York, or Boston or Chicago would function without these systems.
The author argues that the liberals obsession with the rail `` it is rooted in an affection for authoritarianism and collectivism, a latent hatred for the go-anywhere-leave-anytime freedom that automobile owners enjoy''.
I find this to be a cheap shot that does not fit the tone of the rest of the paper. I would remind the author that the ``the go-anywhere-leave-anytime freedom that automobile owners enjoys '' is based on another massive governmental investment, the Eisenhower Highway System. As we well know, this idea of highway system is of a dictatorial extraction (yes, it is Hitler and his autobahns). Just because Hitler had this idea, does not make it a bad one. Also, just like our High Speed Rail, our highway system is only a poor imitation of the German autobahn. I guess that the Germans may have taken to heart the words of Oliver Wendel Holmes: taxes are the price we pay for civilization.
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