I**g 发帖数: 122 | 1 美国各地各级政府似乎都快要穷死,我们每年交如此高的税,你吗钱都去哪了,这个国
家还有一点进步的希望吗?
Commuting woes in New York a sign of bigger problems nationwide
Yahoo Finance By Kevin Chupka
19 hours ago
Frustrated commuters traveling from their New Jersey homes to offices in New
York City were waylaid again today, the fifth time in the last six
commuting days by an aging infrastructure in need of repair.
Key to the delays are old overhead cables used to power trains. The lines
are maintained by Amtrak and essentially leased (along with the tracks
trains run on) for about $100 million a year. Amtrak says they know what the
problem is but don’t have the funds to fix it properly.
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And there’s the problem. Infrastructure, not just in the north east, but
coast to coast, costs money. Lots of it. The problems in and around the
country’s largest city are just a few of the many examples of failing
infrastructure. Yahoo Finance’s Aaron Task says, “we have failing bridges,
we have pot holes. The World Economic Forum ranks us 13th in the world in
infrastructure and that’s down from number seven in 2008...we just don’t
have the political will in this country to do anything about it.”
Yahoo Finance Columnist Rick Newman won’t go quite that far, arguing, “
When the tunnels actually collapse they get fixed,” though he admits, “
That’s a lousy way to manage things.”
Still, his point is that while there are problems, there are also large
parts of our nation’s infrastructure that are in good repair.
Newman points to the migration of Americans back toward cities and new,
though not yet implemented, ways to pay for big projects (like a public/
private infrastructure bank) that will lead to new projects when they are
needed.
A case in point is the new Tappan Zee Bridge 20 miles north of New York City
. The original span has been the focus of a number of fear inducing
headlines claiming collapse was a realistic threat. And so a new bridge is
being built to the tune of $3.9 billion. While the federal government has
kicked in $1.6 billion to the project the exact payment plan for the rest of
it has yet to come into focus.
But back to that commuting headache making headlines this week. Amtrak says
it needs more money to fix their problems even as NJ Transit pumps $100
million into its coffers each year.
“Amtrak can not invest the way it ought to,” Newman believes, “because it
has to keep running unpopulated rail lines as it goes to some member of
congress's district. It’s just inefficient.”
And so one of the busiest public transit arteries in the country remains
clogged and the timeline for unclogging it remains murky at best. |
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