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[quote user="Railway Man"] [quote user="Sam1"] Does anyone really believe that the award of federal monies for enhanced passenger rail in the U.S. was a function of market evaluations as opposed to political considerations?  The big winners appear to be the states that went blue as opposed to red during the last election.  Politicians tend to award their supporters.  I would do the same if I was a politician.  But awarding transport contracts because they are good politics tends to make for bad economics.  [/quote]  On a global scale, for the entire HSIPR program?  At that scale, politics is everything. On the scale of the how the $8 billion was allocated, however, politics mattered a lot less.  Many of the applications violated law and got weeded out.  Many were wishful thinking with no local legs underneath them, and got weeded out.....Correlation is not causation.  RWM [/quote] On a global scale politicals is everything, but somehow it does not filter down to the local level?  I doubt it.  Moreover, unless one read every proposal, he or she would not know their quality.  Correlation is not causation.  I agree.  But it should be a red flag.  That the blue states got most of the money is suspicious.  Hopefully, the GAO, which is one of the most objective audit organizations in the U.S., will review the proposals and how the grants were made.  I lived in Dallas for more than 31 years.  I worked extensively to help get the DART referendum passed.  And I stayed in close touch with DART representatives as the system was built.  Politics infected every aspect of the project.  It is one of the reasons sub-optimum decisions were made regarding equipment purchases, station design, routes, staffing, etc.
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