Quote:
Originally Posted by bnk
I wish these things, and others for any rail expansion from the stimulus, could be totally made in the Midwest. But at least they were assembled in Milwaukee.
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Generally, if it were economical to produce railcars in the US, there would be manufacturers. As it is, the federal Buy America requirements ensure that at least final assembly of transit vehicles is done here (such as the many buses churned out by the New Flyer that happens to be in Rep. Oberstar's district in Minnesota, etc.). At some point, mandating domestic production for government spending becomes just a form of wealth redistribution when the taxpayer is thus paying uncompetitive wages and therefore inflated asset prices, but that's a separate can of worms only tangentially related to Chicago transit.
I wonder, all those countries that manage to build transit infrastructure cheaply and quickly (Spain comes to mind), to what extent do they mandate labor and materials be domestic, versus whatever it takes to get the job done fastest, at highest quality, and lowest cost to the taxpayer?
Quote:
Originally Posted by tup
^ So I take it you don't think there's any hope that Chicago could support a circumferential rail line, despite the fact that pretty much every global, respectable city out there has circumferential lines at some point (and usually more than one of them) in their transit networks?
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In the long run, anything's possible. It's never a bad idea to plan, and plan wisely - I'm all for protecting ROW, carefully building utilities, and building support infrastructure incrementally. But as of right now, no, there isn't remotely the trip density to justify it, nor is driving/parking nearly an unattractive enough option to generate such trip density. Even as it is now, probably 20% of the CTA rail system (ballpark guess) could be replaced with buses with negligble impact on regional transit ridership or congestion (depressing thought, eh?). I just look at the continuous nightmare that is the CTA operating budget and can't fathom how one could add even more underutiilized deadbeat rail service to it, unless you want to go the route of St. Louis, Dallas, et al and build shiny new rail lines in an effort to be a "real city" at the expense of necessary cuts to bus service, to the overall detriment of the transit-dependent population. But at least they have rail lines, like real cities.