Governor snubs Amtrak and Stimulus $$$

[TransitRider]

Remember Amtrak is very expensive because they have high standards and the folks know how to run the train and they know what they are talking about.

 

[had8ley]

Someone check my figures-According to infoplease.com, Louisiana's population last year was 4,410,796.

So if I figured it right, it would be $4.08 per person per year.

I'm not sure if that's unreasonable or not, but that would be per person, and since not everyone in each state pays taxes, then I would assume it would fall on the others that do pay taxes.

I think they like to show the math you posted. It scares people that they may have to pay a pack of cigarettes or a six pack of beer for a stupid train that will be inaccessible to most of the state.

My figures may be way off but if you divide 365 into 18 mil it comes out to about 50 grand a DAY; for that kind of money I'll carry people on my back between Baton Rouge and New Orleans... sounds like somebody has been cooking the books but what else is new in Louisiana ??? Anybody have any REAL figures on what this would HONESTLY cost ???

 

[goodnightjohnwayne]

Today's headline in the Baton Rouge, LA paper reads "Governor Turns Down Rail Route." In trying to establish rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans it seems as though everyone in Louisiana would like to see the service start except for our governor. The deadline for the Republican governor to apply to a Democratic administration for rail funding is today. Jindal's office is signaling that there will be no such move to ask for rail service. He is also the same Republican who turned down Stimulus millions. At present, we have a bus service, started after Katrina, that is usually packed to standing room only. The governor and his staff say they can't afford to subsidize a rail route for the citizens yet flies each and every Sunday in a state police helicopter to various Louisiana towns under the guise of "Sunday Worship." Louisiana politics hard at work...as usual.

As I recollect, there were some very substantial infrastructure improvement costs associated with Baton Rouge to New Orleans train service. Apparently, an analysis was made, and it wasn't favorable to initiating such a service.

From what I've seen, many states are making frivolous and ill-advised requests for federal rail funding, to the extent that total requests exceed $100 billion for only $8 billion in funding. All too often, states are requesting funds for projects that are of so little merit that they shouldn't have been studied, let alone fully funded.

 

[tp49]

Louisiana isnt a state either, its a state of mind!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Louisiana's also unique in not having any counties--it has parishes instead :huh:

Louisiana also has a different legal system then the rest of the US as they still use French civil law or Napoleanic Code while the rest of the US usese the English common law system.

 

[jis]

BUT - in RI, the LT Governor I don't think would take over. And the President (or Governor in this case) usually makes a statement of who will be in charge during his absence - but this was not done at this time. (In fact nobody knew the Governor was away.) So nobody "took charge" during the storm - because they were waiting for "someone else" to authorize what needs to be done. (Such as plow roads or close schools!)

Was he actually in Iraq? Or was he perhaps in that very popular places for governors to be at ..... Argentina? :lol:

 

[volkris]

I was unaware that Amtrak had completed a study of the New Orleans to Baton Rouge route, and had given an estimate on start-up and annual costs, yet the article says that the state can't afford the $18 million a year for the train.

I know they've been talking about it for quite a while. I think I've even seen pictures from test runs of trains going through marshy areas between the two cities.

According to infoplease.com, Louisiana's population last year was 4,410,796. So if I figured it right, it would be $4.08 per person per year.

But that's the population of the entire state working to pay for service that would only benefit/affect a relatively small portion. In the end, you can add and divide the costs various ways to come up with all sorts of different results, but until the money is actually laid on the table it doesn't mean much.

Louisiana, like many other states, is having to grapple with a dose of financial reality right now, and from what I see Jindal is doing a better job than most at bringing a sense of fiscal responsibility to the budgeting process. Louisiana has a long history of poor money management learned from squandering of boom times that have since petered out. Jindal's decision not to commit to an expense without a play for funding is reasonable, mature, and a breath of fresh air in the state long crippled by its populist governance.

 

[bretton88]

After seeing the costs associated with this route, I think no state would want to be on the hook for these costs, especially one with very little history of state supported trains. I personally think that it is a smart move, especially since there is no spare cash right now. Maybe later when the economy is back in good health.

...As much as it pains me to write a post not supporting new train service...

 

[sunchaser]

I was unaware that Amtrak had completed a study of the New Orleans to Baton Rouge route, and had given an estimate on start-up and annual costs, yet the article says that the state can't afford the $18 million a year for the train.

I know they've been talking about it for quite a while. I think I've even seen pictures from test runs of trains going through marshy areas between the two cities.

According to infoplease.com, Louisiana's population last year was 4,410,796. So if I figured it right, it would be $4.08 per person per year.

But that's the population of the entire state working to pay for service that would only benefit/affect a relatively small portion. In the end, you can add and divide the costs various ways to come up with all sorts of different results, but until the money is actually laid on the table it doesn't mean much.

Louisiana, like many other states, is having to grapple with a dose of financial reality right now, and from what I see Jindal is doing a better job than most at bringing a sense of fiscal responsibility to the budgeting process. Louisiana has a long history of poor money management learned from squandering of boom times that have since petered out. Jindal's decision not to commit to an expense without a play for funding is reasonable, mature, and a breath of fresh air in the state long crippled by its populist governance.

My bad-that's why I said check my math, never been a strong point for me. I just tried to find a current population on Baton Rouge, I wasn't very successful. I expect the cost mantainance on the population between these cities would be very expensive. Remember all the complaints about NOL being mostly poor people after Katrina. If this is true, I certainly would not want to add more financial burdens to their existing problems. Sounds like Mr Jindal made a good decision, even though it probably won't be popular.

It is too bad that it is cost prohibitive-it would be good to expand rail service where ever possible.

 

[Rumpled]

I know this is OT, but many things in politics do not make sense. In RI, we have a Governor and a Lt Governor. A few years ago, the Governor went to Iraq to visit local troops. During the weekend he was gone, RI had a major snowstorm. So of course the LT Governor took over, right? :huh:
WRONG! She is not second in command! (Actually it was the head of the Emergency Management Agency - but he did not know it, so it was a big mess that weekend!)

So why pay the $XXX,XXX salary for a position that has no power? :huh:

In California the Lt Gov does, by law, take over when the Gov is out of the state. They are not elected on a ticket, but seperately. We currently have a R (RINO?) Gov and D Lt Gov.

There is typically a type of gentleman's agreement that nothing be done while the gov is out of state, but not always.

I seem to remember in the late 70's or 80's that the Lt Gov signed some legislation the Gov would have vetoed. I think a lawsuit reulsted and it came down to when the Gov's plane reentered CA airspace. Sorry, can't remembe particulars.

Back to trains now.

 

[AlanB]

Jindal's decision not to commit to an expense without a play for funding is reasonable, mature, and a breath of fresh air in the state long crippled by its populist governance.

Actually Jindal's decision had nothing to do with common sense or any fiscal sense.

Initially the state was pursuing funding for the train. Before the study was released and final, an enterprising reporter found out that the state was requesting funding for a train. Many of course may remember that Mr. Jindal made a Republican response where he criticized the train from Vegas. When confronted with the fact that his administration was asking for money for a train from the Fed, the very next day it was suddenly announced that they would not file the application for that funding. The key here being that no one yet knew the actual numbers from the as yet uncompleted study, when the decision was made to stop the process to apply for the Federal funding.

 

[George Harris]

Yes, back to trains:

Much as I like the idea of new passenger trains, for this one, Jindal is probably right.

There are two rail lines between baton rouge and Noew Orleans: Illinois Central and KCS.

The KCS route, which porbably the one being considered, is 79 miles long, and during the days of passenger service had automatic block signals and a 70 mph speed limt and a 1h45m time for passenger trains. From some information I have seen, the block signals have been removed, which would leave it with a maximum 59 mph speed limit for passenger trians. Even with the return of the above, considering other restrictions, such as the long low speed trestle over the Morganza Floodway, it is unlikely that the schedule could be any faster than the historic 1h45m. A bus could beat that.

The ICRR route was longer, somewhere around 85 miles plus and had a passenger train time of 2 hours when they had passenger trains. The passenger trains were the Missouri Pacific trains between New Orleans and Houston. The line still has the block signals in place, but with Yard Limits designated throughout. Even with the former passenger limit restored, the likely time would still be in the two hour range.

Either of these routes would requrie megabucks to restore passenger train speeds and track conditions. Unless the market will support multipe trains per day it is simply no worth while to spend the money. IF the run time could be under 1h30m, then and only then would the trains make sense. This would require a lot more than just make do spending, which is what usually happens. It would require such things as replacement of the Morganza Floodway bridge, improvements that would allow faster speeds in the New Orleans area, of course signals, in addition to the track upgrades and stations that obviously are needed. With ATC and other changes needed to allow a 90 mph or faster speed limit it might be possible to get the run time down to about 1h15m, which would be what it would take to meet or beat the bus time. It would have to be on the KCS line, as the ICRR line more or less follows the river and has a lot more curves. While KCS was quite pro-passenger in the mid 1960's, forty years later, that is no longer true, so you would be dealing with an unhappy host RR.

In sum, I feel tha Jindal made the right decision. To have gone for this would have been to use Federal money in such a way as to increase the burden on the state, not decrease it.

Alan: I was writiong this before your post appeared. What I said is my opinion on the matter and was not written for the purpose of being contradictory. GH

 

[Ispolkom]

And surely both explanations can be true: this project was both politically and mechanically unfeasible. Even if Gov. Jindal made his decision purely from political calculation (and I'll leave that to people who follow Louisiana politics better than I), that doesn't mean that it wasn't the right decision in terms of the engineering problems. After all, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Oh, and according to Wikipedia, if the Kentucky governor crosses the border to have a bowl of Cincinnati chili he can return to find that his Lieutenant Governor has pardoned half the penitentiary, called the legislature into special session, and commissioned a mess of new Kentucky colonels. Heck of a way to run a state, but it seems to work for them. It must make for interesting vacations for the governor.

 

[AlanB]

Alan: I was writiong this before your post appeared. What I said is my opinion on the matter and was not written for the purpose of being contradictory. GH

George,

No worries, and I didn't take it that way. I know what you do for a living and I value your opinions, considerably. And the study I think bears out your analysis and it does call in question whether or not this service would have made sense.

I just made my post becaus I wanted to point out that the application for funding wasn't killed because of the numbers, it got killed for other reasons. The bad numbers came out after the plug had already been pulled.

 

[had8ley]

Just one more item. Today's (Saturday's) Baton Rouge Advocate's headline is "New York Firm With Ties To Jindal Gets Deal." For the life of me I'll never know why Louisiana politicians chose parties. All they would have to say is "I'm a Louisiana politician" and everyone would understand. Just ask our only four term governor, Edwin Edwards, who is still in the Federal pen in his mid-80's. Now I'll crawl back into my cave.

 

[had8ley]

Just one more item. Today's (Saturday's) Baton Rouge Advocate's headline is "New York Firm With Ties To Jindal Gets Deal." For the life of me I'll never know why Louisiana politicians chose parties. All they would have to say is "I'm a Louisiana politician" and everyone would understand. Just ask our only four term governor, Edwin Edwards, who is still in the Federal pen in his mid-80's. Now I'll crawl back into my cave.

I was deep in the cave finishing up Saturday's paper and found that in the very back pages that the parishes that the New Orleans to Baton Rouge train would run through were willing to put up their fair share of the operating costs. California is probably a lot broker than Louisiana will ever be (hopefully if our politicos behave themselves) and they voted a $10 million bond issue last year to extend service that they can't afford now. What gives?

 

[DET63]

If there was a (relatively) high-speed rail service between Baton Rouge and N'Ahrlins (or however the locals say it), would it be patronized by televangelist Jimmy Swaggart making trips to and from the "Big Easy" as he was noted for doing in the past—only this time by rail instead of in his own car?

 

[had8ley]

If there was a (relatively) high-speed rail service between Baton Rouge and N'Ahrlins (or however the locals say it), would it be patronized by televangelist Jimmy Swaggart making trips to and from the "Big Easy" as he was noted for doing in the past—only this time by rail instead of in his own car?

I can't pass this one up The train would go right by Airline and Carrolton where Brother Jimmy found his honeys of the night. Don't forget~ Swaggert, Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley are all cousins. Seems to run in the family :lol:

 

[Rumpled]

In California the Lt Gov does, by law, take over when the Gov is out of the state. They are not elected on a ticket, but seperately. We currently have a R (RINO?) Gov and D Lt Gov.
There is typically a type of gentleman's agreement that nothing be done while the gov is out of state, but not always.

I seem to remember in the late 70's or 80's that the Lt Gov signed some legislation the Gov would have vetoed. I think a lawsuit reulsted and it came down to when the Gov's plane reentered CA airspace. Sorry, can't remembe particulars.

Back to trains now.

Just to tie up a loose end that has been nagging me in my brain. I even had the right time frame.

The Lt Gov I was thinking of was Mike Curb and the Gov was Jerry Brown. 1979-80 when Moonbeam was running for Pres.

The case went to the Supremes - In re the Petition of the Commission on the Governorship of California (Brown v. Curb), 26 Cal. 3d 110

Found this on wikipedia - Mike Curb at Wikipedia

 

[Trainmans daughter]

That would be a good name for a singing group....."Mike Curb and the Supremes"

 

[volkris]

I was deep in the cave finishing up Saturday's paper and found that in the very back pages that the parishes that the New Orleans to Baton Rouge train would run through were willing to put up their fair share of the operating costs. California is probably a lot broker than Louisiana will ever be (hopefully if our politicos behave themselves) and they voted a $10 million bond issue last year to extend service that they can't afford now. What gives?

A lot of those parishes are already broke, even if they don't know it.

I have family working in some of them, doing accountancy work, and they tell me about the massive amount of red ink sitting just under the surface. The influx of Katrina evacuees has propped many of these parishes up, giving them a temporary image of growing economies, but leaving them saddled with long-term bills without any plan for paying them off.

So what happens when the parishes run out of money in a few years? Their promise to put up their fair share of operating costs won't be worth a whole lot when they're choosing between funding the train and funding police and schools.

This should be no surprise to anyone versed in Louisiana history and the stuff that goes on in the smaller parishes. Surely Jindal is aware of it, and aware that the state will be left holding the bag when they fail to pay their bills, so even their offer to pay a share of the cost isn't worth much. And again: there has been no legislative action to fund the rest of it, so even with the parishes chipping in the thing isn't paid for.

Louisiana under Jindal has shown more fiscal maturity than California, and we Louisianians (even we "Northern" Louisianians) should be glad for that.

 

[PetalumaLoco]

I was deep in the cave finishing up Saturday's paper and found that in the very back pages that the parishes that the New Orleans to Baton Rouge train would run through were willing to put up their fair share of the operating costs. California is probably a lot broker than Louisiana will ever be (hopefully if our politicos behave themselves) and they voted a $10 million bond issue last year to extend service that they can't afford now. What gives?

A lot of those parishes are already broke, even if they don't know it.

I have family working in some of them, doing accountancy work, and they tell me about the massive amount of red ink sitting just under the surface. The influx of Katrina evacuees has propped many of these parishes up, giving them a temporary image of growing economies, but leaving them saddled with long-term bills without any plan for paying them off.

So what happens when the parishes run out of money in a few years? Their promise to put up their fair share of operating costs won't be worth a whole lot when they're choosing between funding the train and funding police and schools.

This should be no surprise to anyone versed in Louisiana history and the stuff that goes on in the smaller parishes. Surely Jindal is aware of it, and aware that the state will be left holding the bag when they fail to pay their bills, so even their offer to pay a share of the cost isn't worth much. And again: there has been no legislative action to fund the rest of it, so even with the parishes chipping in the thing isn't paid for.

Louisiana under Jindal has shown more fiscal maturity than California, and we Louisianians (even we "Northern" Louisianians) should be glad for that.

I wonder how La would be doing if this was taken away;

"Per dollar of federal tax collected in 2005, Louisiana citizens received approximately $1.78 in the way of federal spending. This ranks the state 4th highest nationally..." source Wikipedia Louisiana.

 

[Ryan]

That's all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that Jindal made the decision to not pursue the money for political reasons before the study was complete. Possibly the right decision, wrong reasoning.

 

[rrdude]

Not always true. In Kentucky when the Governor leaves the state for whatever reason, the Lt Governor takes over and has all the powers of the top office.
And, we can have a democrat in one of the offices and a republican in the other. Doesn't happen often, but it has. When it does the Governor never leaves the state as the Lt Governor starts doing things the Governor doesn't want done!

It depends upon the state's constitution, however, when most states wrote their Constitutions (with regards to executive branch) in a mirror to the US Constitution's treatment of the Presidency and Vice Presidency.

Kentucky isn't a state.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[George Harris]

"Per dollar of federal tax collected in 2005, Louisiana citizens received approximately $1.78 in the way of federal spending. This ranks the state 4th highest nationally..." source Wikipedia Louisiana.

What is missing from this little sound bite is where it goes.

I would like to see it broken down by such stuff as how much is spent by the Corps on Mississippi River navigation works, which primarily benefits the barge companies who are just passing through.

 

[Mark]

I'm not surprised by Jindals's move at all. If he doesn't want federal dollars for a HSR project or an improved rail system, fine by me. That's more for another state or city that is truly interesting in getting HSR off the ground.