Penn Central wrote:Otto Vondrak wrote:I've got to start a Fantasy Railroad Forum...
Otto is right. With multi-billion dollar defecits looming and doomsday budget proposals, let's hope we can hold on to what we've got. Completing east side access will be a plus. To go from proposal, to studies, to public hearings, to RFPs, to actual construction takes longer than the term of any president. I think they began talking about the new Tappan Zee Bridge 30 years ago.
Our newly elected president Obama proposes spending close to a trillion dollars in the next two years on new roads, bridges, and transit projects to stimulate the economy. The projects must be ready to stick the shovel in the ground. The Tunnel project would be one of the beneficiary of the stimulus bill, it is ready to start it just needs funding. So this is not a fantasy. My question is what projects MetroNorth and the LIRR has ready to stick the shovel in the ground? I guess in a month we will see the "fantasy" list.
You certainly could argue it's wasteful spending, it's going to hurt the economy, but this is not the place to debate these issues. Since Otto brought up the doomsday budget, just remember under a so called conservative president George W. Bush, the national debt went from $5,000,000,000,000.00 to $10,000,000,000,000.00 (5 trillion to 10 trillion).