My Turn: Rail service to Concord: one big money pit

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Well, here we go again: $3 million to study whether to pour billions of dollars into a money pit!

If a study of train service between Massachusetts and Concord is truly needed, then allocate no more than $10,000 and send some overpaid bureaucrats out on the road to interview bus riders along the proposed route to see if they would be willing to go by rail instead – and be willing to pay the entire ridership fee, not a subsidized ticket price. I’d bet that none would be willing to pay the full boat, and half would prefer to stick with the buses. All could be surveyed in two weeks, and the report could be written up on one sheet of paper, instead of multiple unreadable volumes that will take months to prepare.

What happens to these privately owned bus companies? Are they forced into bankruptcy so the government can spend more of our money needlessly? And what of the employees of the bus lines? Do we throw them to the wolves so we can spend more taxpayer dollars?

I am sick and tired of subsidizing nonsensical projects thought up by bureaucrats with nothing better to do. Once the infrastructure is set in place, if this boondoggle cannot support itself, then it shouldn’t be allowed by the taxpayers.

Enough is enough! Why should we support those privileged few who travel to Boston or New York daily so they can earn higher wages? They are earning more, so let them pay for this privilege and not ask a working stiff to pay their travel expenses.

If a private company doesn’t find a railroad feasible, why do you think that our government, notorious for overspending and hiring overpriced friends, can go it alone? It can’t! It will just be another Concord trolley system, zipping merrily along, empty, place to place. Sucking up our dollars!

Common sense says the railroad will not work! With a permanent subsidy, it will exist as a money pit, towing the privileged few to better jobs daily and occasional riders to Red Sox and Patriots games. Maybe it will even bring a few to shop or gamble in Massachusetts, further taking away money that should remain in New Hampshire.

Will Massachusetts people come to New Hampshire by rail? No way! For once they got to Concord, there would be no way to get to tourist destinations or restaurants, unless we build a subsidized rail to who knows where. Another money pit in the making.

Enough is enough! It’s not wanted by most. It’s not needed by anyone.

Taxpayers, it’s time to draw a line in the sand and say “No more!”

(Tom Geno lives in Canterbury.)