As the facts emerge, you begin to see the motivation behind these infrastructure deniers

[kpete]

No one did a better job of explaining the source of this curious apathy toward passenger rail last week than the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik:

The will to abandon the public way is not some failure of understanding, or some nearsighted omission by shortsighted politicians. It is part of a coherent ideological project. As I wrote a few years ago, in a piece on the literature of American declinism, “The reason we don’t have beautiful new airports and efficient bullet trains is not that we have inadvertently stumbled upon stumbling blocks; it’s that there are considerable numbers of Americans for whom these things are simply symbols of a feared central government, and who would, when they travel, rather sweat in squalor than surrender the money to build a better terminal.” The ideological rigor of this idea, as absolute in its way as the ancient Soviet conviction that any entering wedge of free enterprise would lead to the destruction of the Soviet state, is as instructive as it is astonishing. And it is part of the folly of American “centrism” not to recognize that the failure to run trains where we need them is made from conviction, not from ignorance.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-plot-against-trains

.....they’ve deliberately starved our transportation system of federal funds, and with the cracks are starting to show, they want desperately to deny cause-and-effect to ensure that they’re not saddled with responsibility for the real-world consequences of their political philosophy.
http://www.narprail.org/hotline--blog/passenger-train-hype-machine-gears-up-yet-again

http://www.mexperience.com/guide/essentials/transport/mexico-bus-travel.php#1

back from central Mexico where i traveled to a wedding with my family - from Mexico City DF to Cuernavaca to San Miguel De Allende to Leon - Air-conditioned, on time, professional, good movies, clean bathrooms, comfortable seats with leg rests even.....

Come on America - You can't do Better?

kp

[FlatBaroque]

1. Centrism is a euphamism

for something far more nefarious. It is not centrist at all. It's worst aspect is economic neo-liberalism or as I call it radical capitalism.

[hifiguy]

2. Facts are stubborn things.

And the writers are correct - it's all based in a completely fucked-up belief system which can be demonstrated to be completely false. There are kinds of stupid that simply cannot be fixed, unlike infrastructure.

[Arugula Latte]

3. Why are military contractors able to milk the system for massive contracts, but

road, bridge, construction, transportation, etc. companies are not?

[MisterP]

4. but the Hyperloop's a cocktail napkin by a rich guy!