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maxhinator123 t1_j7u7m91 wrote

I'm furious, they know we are getting closer and closer to rail finally returning to this state. Connecting nashua-manch-concord to the Boston metropolitan area would do wonders for our economy and the environment. It only hurts big oil and the auto industry, conveniently the guys lobbying against it and donating to the legislators.

Please please please reach out. We cannot afford to go backwards, this project will fix traffic and help our fuel and heat oil prices stay low by dramatically reducing oil use from automobiles. Also uh the environment lol

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KrissaKray t1_j7u9mma wrote

When will it pay for itself?

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megagem t1_j7udh90 wrote

If we're getting rid of things that don't directly pay for themselves, driving is first on the chopping block by a very wide margin.

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KrissaKray t1_j7udww8 wrote

Can you please elaborate?

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megagem t1_j7uea8x wrote

Driving is the most heavily subsidized mode of transportation. Logically it needs to be the first to go.

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KrissaKray t1_j7ufbs2 wrote

How is it subsidized, I mean?

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megagem t1_j7ugo25 wrote

Drivers don't pay for it, so clearly someone else does. Not the negative externalities of the pollution they're responsible for, not the wear and tear on the roads and infrastructure (beyond a laughable token amount), not the cost of parking for free on public land, etc.

If we want to make driving profitable, we need to massively raise the gas tax for the pollution, implement an annual fee based on miles traveled and weight to cover all road and auto infrastructure costs (including those currently paid for by the Federal Government), use congestion pricing, deploy automated traffic enforcement cameras, and ensure that all vehicles parked on public property pay the prevailing market price for that footprint of land.

I always get a chuckle out of the lack of self-awareness when people talk about a rail option not paying for itself. Even if the ticket price is a loss, moving someone from a car to the train is a net gain because driving is a much larger loss.

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KrissaKray t1_j7uj9w0 wrote

Literally everyone who use the roads pay for them. According to multiple sources, the roads are paid for with: Gas tax (state AND Fed), tolls, registration fees etc. If you don't drive, you don't ultimately pay for those things.

The rail line? This will NOT be paid for with JUST rail line users' funds.

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SgtToastie t1_j7ur3gp wrote

Your source literally says that the roads aren't self funded and rely on at least $144 million in federal subsidies. That's not "paying for itself".

FY2023 report states say Transportation costs are at $680,627,309. Our dedicated intake from highways tolls, car reg, and other miscellaneous funds is $432,055,480. After that federal highway funding that'd leave around $104 million coming out the general tax funds each year. How did you reach the conclusion that it's self funded from that?

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KrissaKray t1_j7urfoq wrote

Didddddd you know gas taxes aren’t just state?

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SgtToastie t1_j7usfyr wrote

If you want to try analyzing the Federal Highway Trust Fund and show the match between the inlays to NH and the outlays over the various fuel taxes be my guest, you still haven't addressed the nearly $100 million deficit. Kinda weird you ignore that part completely.

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AdditionalAioli6394 t1_j7usxuo wrote

When was the last time the federal gas tax was raised? It's long past due.

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deadliftothersup t1_j7wpvs4 wrote

Over 25 years ago and it's a hard coded number, not based on inflation, so every year national gas tax has contributed less to maintaining roads. Also local roads are far more heavily funded via property taxes. Gas taxes, federal and state don't come close to paying for themselves.

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megagem t1_j7utagt wrote

In addition to the other response by SgtToastie, this STILL doesn't take into consideration the costs of pollution, congestion, or condemning valuable land to uneconomic parking.

Every single person that complains about the cost of the train is a driver that loses their minds at the idea of actually paying for the full cost of their car.

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deadliftothersup t1_j7wpzgg wrote

While simultaneously bitching about traffic they're stuck in no less

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maxhinator123 t1_j7ud9oh wrote

A common misconception in America is that services as such should generate "profit". While rail service like this is likely to never generate raw profit, it is astronomically lower to maintain than roadways as rail can go many years without maintenance and there are near zero treatment needs such as plowing and pothole repair.

The real gain or "profit" are two categories, local economy and gains with people who do still commute.

For the local community it's as easy to think hey, someone can live in Manchester and commute near Boston, this person lives here this generates revenue for local business with rent food etc.. it's proven time and time again rail infrastructure causes drastic economic growth near where it is implemented. Especially given that those who use it aren't tied to automobiles which frees up a lot of income for other expenses of theirs. These are naturally reinvested into the local economy.

For the other part, automobile traffic, trains can transport an impressive number of people quickly, not only will this remove those cars from the roads removing traffic we all hate, but it removes the cost of those roadways (granted the shrink or at least stop growing) which are dozens of times more expensive to maintain than a railway (for some reason we are all okay spilling our taxes on "one more lane" but not actually fixing the problem.

There are endless gains to rail as we see how most other developed countries have most of their population commuting by it.

Americans just need to stop thinking of it as a profit project but a tax saving project and economic growth opportunity.

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KrissaKray t1_j7udc21 wrote

Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize failing business models.

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maxhinator123 t1_j7ufndb wrote

  • shoots self in foot not understanding where taxes go. Rail would lower your taxes
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KrissaKray t1_j7ujolw wrote

Lol! No it wouldn’t.

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TarantinoFan23 t1_j7uyan5 wrote

You can easily lower your taxes. Stop working and stop buying stuff. Patriots and true Americans love to pay taxes because it means they are successful. I wish I had so much income that my tax bill paid for an entire school. And all those kid made the community bright and lively.

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vexingsilence t1_j7v45p1 wrote

>Patriots and true Americans love to pay taxes

Well there's some 100% grade A bullshit.

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TarantinoFan23 t1_j7v6vcy wrote

If you have no use for any services that taxes fund, then you really have no need to participate in society at all. On the other hand, if you are using the services but not paying for them, that would be a sense of unfounded entitlement.

Paying taxes gives me security and services. And liked-mind folks who like those things choose to enact and pay for them. The system we use for that is called a government, which we made, specifically for awesome stuff. So we also made up money to facilitate all this. You get to use money. You don't "make" it because it is symbolic.

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vexingsilence t1_j7v8081 wrote

No sane person "loves" paying taxes. It goes to a finding a corrupt system that gets more corrupt the further you get from where you live. By the time it reaches DC, there's very little chance that any of the money you paid goes to anything that benefits you or your community.

MA is much more liberal than NH, and they have the option to pay a higher tax rate if they want to. Hardly anyone ever does. That's how much they love paying taxes.

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TarantinoFan23 t1_j7v9k3i wrote

I gave you a good reason to pay taxes. You're just blindly giving money to government without participating in the process. If no one worked at all no one would pay taxes and there would be no government at all. You can already go live like that if you want to. Go

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vexingsilence t1_j7vaq77 wrote

>You're just blindly giving money to government without participating in the process.

Make assumptions much?

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TarantinoFan23 t1_j7vcfyh wrote

I was one the fence about that sentence because I assumed you'd make a stink about how voters shape policy just by voting. Blah blah blah. Anyways, you just want to pick apart what I am sayibg without making a point. I DO love to pay taxes so you are the one with inaccurate assumptions

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vexingsilence t1_j7vhz2d wrote

You made a sweeping statement that patriots and "true Americans" love paying taxes. That's like the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. You might love it, plenty of people don't. There are whole businesses devoted to helping people pay the least amount of taxes possible. Does that make them less patriotic or less of an American? That's a slippery slope. If you're not making six figures, you're practically a terrorist?

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TarantinoFan23 t1_j7vj8rw wrote

Tons of people pay no taxes, Its simple. The baffling thing is that people who don't want to pay taxes, yet want money. Those people are selfish and short-sighted. So those are the people thinking wrong, like you are.

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vexingsilence t1_j7vko81 wrote

No. Not every project is worthy of funding. What kind of argument is that? If someone doesn't see a need for commuter rail, that doesn't make them any less of a "patriot" than someone that does see a need. That's such a disgusting way of debating a topic. Some people want commuter rail, they need to make a compelling argument to convince enough of the voters and their representatives to push the project through. That hasn't happened so far. Expensive projects like this should never get an automatic green light.

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TarantinoFan23 t1_j7vp1fw wrote

But you're in favor of an automatic red light on everything, not much different.

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vexingsilence t1_j7vq7c2 wrote

I've watched it play out and added my $0.02 in some of the public feedback over the decades that this has been under discussion. That's pretty far from an automatic red light.

That's why there's a proposal to kill the thing. It's dragged on long enough. We need to either build it, or end it. We're wasting time and money letting this proposal drag on forever.

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TarantinoFan23 t1_j7vrbc3 wrote

Talk is cheap, the only reason to force people to stop is if you think they'll reach a conclusion that you decided you won't like.

Edit: It is actually an insidious tactic to shut down debate just because you've arbitrarily decided "its gone on too long".

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vexingsilence t1_j7vvyte wrote

It's not a tactic to kill debate, it's a tactic to stop the state and the cities of Nashua and Manchester from dumping money into something that has failed to get off the ground in the ~50+ years that it's been under discussion. How much longer would you like to drag this out for? There's no use in keeping a project in the discussion phase for that long. It's either viable or it's not.

Would you be happier if this bill proposed shelving the project for a decade and then calling for it to be returned to the table for discussion then to see if conditions have changed enough to warrant further discussion?

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TarantinoFan23 t1_j7w42jk wrote

I am in favor of making the best decisions. There is no limit to the amount of discussion to reach that conclusion. But we can't even debate the rail thing because we waste so much time debating if we should debate it. And THIS conversation is like debating if we should debate about debating. A person who is just looking to stifle progress can keep going like this forever. It is another insidious strategy to keep the focus away from the actual question at hand.

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vexingsilence t1_j7w6yak wrote

The government shouldn't discuss topics endlessly. There are other topics that are not getting the attention they deserve by doing so. If a consensus can't be reached, it should be shelved for a while and everyone should move on. Revisit it at a later date after the interested parties have had time to come up with a more compelling pitch. I don't see an issue with that. A lot of people are in favor, a lot of against. There's no consensus.

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TarantinoFan23 t1_j7wagdq wrote

You obviously don't want the rail and are doing mental gymnastics to justify shutting down debate BEFORE there is a decision. Let the debate die of its own merit or it will never be settled.

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vexingsilence t1_j7wfa5q wrote

There's been 50+ years of debate. How much more do you want?

Like I said, there's no consensus. There's been countless studies and pitches over the years. None of them were compelling enough to rally enough support to get it approved.

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TarantinoFan23 t1_j7zij3p wrote

Endless debate is actually fine as long as both sides are debating in good faith. There's no reason to stifle it unless you have an ulterior motive (like keeping status quo because it benefits you personally.)

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vexingsilence t1_j7zqrmb wrote

It costs time and money to keep it going. If you can't make your case, it gets set aside. Much like this discussion here is about to.

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ZacPetkanas t1_j7um1g6 wrote

> Rail would lower your taxes

How so? The roads aren't going to be decommissioned so taxes would be spent on roads and rail. Where does the savings come from?

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SkiingAway t1_j7ufoze wrote

Roads get massive subsidies. How do you think all of the road work is paid for? The gas tax(es) don't come anywhere close to paying for it.

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KrissaKray t1_j7ug0nj wrote

Are you forgetting the massive registration fees each year? Tolls? Property taxes?

edit: I'm all for preventing people who dont pay those things from using the roads lmao

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SkiingAway t1_j7uh4f5 wrote

> Are you forgetting the massive registration fees each year? Tolls?

No. Still doesn't cover the cost. Roughly half of road spending in the country comes from general funds, not user fees (gas tax, registration, license, other costs you only pay for driving).

> Property taxes?

Are not a tax paid by drivers specifically - the use of that money to subsidize rail is no different from using it to subsidize roads.

Either they're both "failing business models", or looking at basic transportation infrastructure through the lens of profit/loss is a dumb idea....in both cases.

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KrissaKray t1_j7ui1h0 wrote

Where do the funds come from? I’m asking because you seem like the expert in this.

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SkiingAway t1_j7upwn9 wrote

NH actually does better than the average state, to be clear - it's around #13 - about 60% of road costs were covered by those kinds of user fees in FY 2016 Source.

> Where do the funds come from? I’m asking because you seem like the expert in this.

Other "general" tax revenues.

Especially at the federal level. The infrastructure bill that's sending billions in $ to NH, is not coming from the gas tax.

The normal federal share of road infrastructure projects is increasingly not coming from gas taxes. The federal highway trust fund that pays for those is theoretically funded by the gas tax....but the tax hasn't been increased since 1993, things clearly cost more today than 30 years ago, and so Congress transfers billions per year of general revenue (income taxes and the like) to plug the gap.

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TarantinoFan23 t1_j7uyq0t wrote

Soild facts and logic are often completely ignored by the person you are trying to inform. They cannot change their view. Some sort of primitive brain malfunction.

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megagem t1_j7ue125 wrote

There is no mode of transportation that this applies more to than the personal automobile. The rail link will be profitable once we cut the dead weight by banning cars.

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vexingsilence t1_j7v4nf5 wrote

> The rail link will be profitable once we cut the dead weight by banning cars.

Not happening in our lifetimes. The rail service serves a very narrow corridor. It's not going to replace private vehicle use in any significant way. You can add in bus lines to service the stations, but that's making a train trip that's already too long even longer. And it's still a fairly narrow service corridor.

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Curious_Buffalo_1206 t1_j7uln2w wrote

I’m sure you support a VMT tax then?

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KrissaKray t1_j7upvkh wrote

Going to be real I don’t support any taxes… but the others are already there and I understand that some taxation may be required. I don’t in ANY WAY support “new” taxes without removing taxation from elsewhere though.

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Curious_Buffalo_1206 t1_j7uqqy5 wrote

So you’re a child. Got it

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KrissaKray t1_j7uqvv2 wrote

Thanks for attacking me over thinking taxes are stupid.

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Curious_Buffalo_1206 t1_j7uwiv6 wrote

No one likes paying taxes, but we live in a society. A VMT almost feels un-American, doesn’t it? It exposes use fees in general for what they really are: a crock of shit. If we subsidize roads, we should subsidize railroads too.

I hear the taxes are non-existent in Somalia if you ever decide you don’t like the benefits of society.

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KrissaKray t1_j7ux2sz wrote

I literally said I understand that some taxation is required. New taxes encourage more unchecked spending. They’ll never go down. They just grab more and more.

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Curious_Buffalo_1206 t1_j7uyxlu wrote

Trump cut taxes. Dubya Bush cut taxes. Sununu just eliminated the tax on unearned income in NH. Massachusetts cut taxes over the last 30 years, and fell to the mid-20s in the ranking of states by tax burden. Taxes get cut all the time. What are you talking about?

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603ify t1_j7v2neo wrote

Wow, so someone asks you to not take their money by force, for a service they likely won’t use, and you’re resorting to attacking them? Jeez that’s a sick attitude.

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Curious_Buffalo_1206 t1_j7v4008 wrote

How’s your crypto beanie baby portfolio holding up without the backing of the evil State’s monopoly on violence? Your money only has value because the government accepts it as payment for taxes.

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Action-Calm t1_j7ua0os wrote

Never. It will be a money pit like the T in Boston

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Curious_Buffalo_1206 t1_j7ulxx3 wrote

If you libertarian nuts somehow took over MA and abolished the T, their entire economy would collapse. Boston cannot function without it. It’s not built for cars. Traffic is already hopelessly gridlocked. Cars never should have been allowed there in the first place.

The T is to government as IT is to business. Yeah, it’s a “cost center” and makes no money, but everything else depends on it. Only dumbass beancounters don’t get that.

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lantonas t1_j7v4pto wrote

And New Hampshire won't collapse without commuter rail

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Curious_Buffalo_1206 t1_j7v59sq wrote

No, but Manchester will remain the biggest shithole within 75 miles of Boston. All the other shitholes near Boston have gotten a lot better over the last 10 years. Manchester has gotten a lot worse. It’s the only one without commuter rail. That’s not a coincidence.

When they finish east-west rail, it’ll only be a matter of time before Manchester falls behind Springfield and Hartford, too. You’re cutting off your own dick to spite your masshole.

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Action-Calm t1_j7uu6z5 wrote

Well keep it in Boston. That way you can be a good little lemming.

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K_Gal14 t1_j7udv9q wrote

The t is different than commuter rail in Boston. Kelois is a private company that runs that rail. My understanding is it is they do make money, but definitely fact check me there.

Mbta is a different gov run disaster

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KrissaKray t1_j7ua389 wrote

At this point, I’m not even sure the T is properly solvent.

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