I think the fact that your quote from the fifties starts out with, "The raving socialist President Eisenhower..." shows this was not exactly a mainstream opinion back then. Do the polls from that era that it was considered a boondoggle?
"Budget candy"? Like Boehner's engines or NASCAR advertising for the Army?
Didn't the engines get voted down? Yeah!
The Nascar advertising budget is a drop in the bucket to high speed rail. Do you really think that's a logical comparison?
Fact is: We don't know who will be riding high speed rail once the system is finished in what, 10 years? Just like we didn't know who would use the interstates way back when...
You're kidding right?
If you can't even make a good estimate on ridership than it's not a serious project, Those numbers are key to calculating costs. I would say I'm double right on the boondoggle.
