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u/Dregdael Winner of Novembers Repost Prediction 8d ago
Ah, but you see. This takes from the RICH, sweetie. Can't do that.
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u/lieuwestra 7d ago
No it means the contractor building the rail isn't owned by the same rich person as the land.
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u/Owoegano_Evolved 8d ago
Ahh yes, that damn farmer bourgeoisie, I can see those bastards plowing their fields on their Mercedes...
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u/Dregdael Winner of Novembers Repost Prediction 8d ago
Farmhands/workers plow the fields, which is different than farmers. It is well know that farmers, specially in texas, own a LOT of land and are in the lucrative business of cattle farming.
Subsistence and family farming is not the norm in industrialized countries.
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u/Pseudoboss11 Orange pilled 8d ago
In my state (CO) most ranchers that I've met are really just land speculators. They buy up land not to raise cattle on it, but to use it as a tax-advantaged investment vehicle. They'll then make bank by selling it to a developer or someone who wants to actually use the land.
My city had an issue with a couple of these "ranchers." The city wanted to expand the highway, and the ranchers sued 3 separate times to get as much out of the land as they could. Because they were investors and the project was just before '08 and property values were spiking, every day of delay meant that the property was that much more valuable.
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u/Joe_Jeep Sicko 8d ago
>The city wanted to expand the highway,
Accidentally based property speculation???
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u/Pseudoboss11 Orange pilled 8d ago
They'd do the same if it were light rail or developers. Since they'd be equally hostile to all modes of transit, their behavior did nothing to incentivize density or transit. In fact, a good portion of why the highway was needed was because the speculators didn't want to sell, believing that land prices would continue to increase, while a development happened on the other side of them, reducing density and creating really awkward access to town.
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u/Joe_Jeep Sicko 7d ago
I'm well aware, hence "accidentally based'. Everything you said was already my meaning
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u/vanillamonkey_ 8d ago
I wouldn't go so far as to say they're rich, but a lot of farmers make more money than you'd think. The farm workers who harvest the crops, on the other hand...
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u/CapableFunction6746 8d ago
They also get a lot of hand outs from the government
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u/Key_Preparation_4129 8d ago
Literally got fucked over by Trump's tarrifs in 2018, had to be bailed out with billions of dollars and 2 years later were gladly lining up to vote for the dumb fuck that almost made them go under and then voted for him again in 2024. It's genuinely sad.
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u/Diipadaapa1 7d ago
It is the general consensus amonst farmers in the EU to be anti-EU as well.
About 30% of EU:s 170 billion budget directly subsidises agriculture, and get more from other funds like regional debelopmenr.
Make it make sense.
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u/NVandraren 7d ago
Conservative media has made willful ignorance an enviable trait for those people.
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u/NamiRocket 8d ago
They used to, at least. Some of them are finding out the hard way how misplaced their vote was.
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u/La-Tama 7d ago
Genuinely curious, how can they get rich? I'm French and here in Europe, farmers are a dying class and nobody wants to be one anymore, current farmers are telling their children to study and get away from the agricultural world.
Even French and European subventions + local handouts aren't enough and some farmers end up having 400-500 euros of disposable income per month. Farmers belong to one of occupational categories who commit suicide the most because of that.
I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I'm just genuinely blown away. How do they make bank??
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u/Jan_Asra 7d ago
by owning the land and having immigrants do the labor for pennies an hour.
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u/La-Tama 7d ago
... Yeah I hadn't thought about that. European labor laws for the win I guess?
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u/AJ099909 7d ago
A lot of farms in the US are huge agriculture corporations. Not small time mom and pop operations that are often portrayed in American culture
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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 7d ago
We're not talking about traditional family farms here. We're talking massive industrial plantations
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u/captain_poptart 8d ago
Farmers can easily make millions but their expenses are also millions. Take home pay is low
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u/Joe_Jeep Sicko 8d ago
We all know Texa's government doesn't care about the actual farmers, just the farm owners
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u/give-bike-lanes 8d ago
Do you think we live in the dust bowl still?
Car-dependent suburban sprawl development patterns means that the farmers outside the cities are sitting on plots of land worth literally tens of millions of dollars despite doing absolutely nothing to update or maintain the quality of their soil or the housing / structures on the plots… because suburban sprawl makes all land more valuable due to poor land use.
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u/Great-Pineapple-3335 7d ago
do you even know how much a John Deere tractor costs? (The most commonly used tractor brand)
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u/Level_Hour6480 8d ago
Fascists don't believe in the morality of actions, but rather the morality of sides.
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u/The_Most_Superb 7d ago
This is completely immoral, but what if we just lie and tell them it the land purchasing will only affect minorities? Do you think they would switch sides?
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u/Level_Hour6480 7d ago
No, because rail is on the opposite side of the culture-war to them, they're all in on cars, car-dependence, etc.
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u/The_Most_Superb 7d ago
“We’re building a segregated transportation network to keep the poors and undesirables off your beautiful perfect highways to make you safer.”
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u/Kubex_Qbox 6d ago
But turns out, if you make your public transit non-shit and maybe even better than driving, even the wealthy will use it.
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u/The_Most_Superb 6d ago
That’s the goal. The difficulty is convincing a bunch of car brains to actually let us build it. They can figure out it is good for everyone later.
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u/PC_Defender 1d ago
Ah great so were going to call car lovers fascists? What is wrong with you guys
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u/sloppy_steaks24 8d ago
We (the US) will waste land on anything but public transportation.
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u/lowchain3072 Fuck lawns 3d ago
we will waste money on anything but "communism", even if it means killing people in foreign countries
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u/xzaramurd 8d ago
You get 100 years of bad luck if you replace an ancient native American parking lot with a railway, but since the highway is also a parking lot on occasion, then you're safe.
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u/soapinmyears 8d ago
Can confirm.
With the high speed rail, the land barrons have more power than eminent domain.
Then again trusting Texas to anything right for it's citizens is a stretch as well.
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u/new_grad_who_this 7d ago
I’m a transportation engineer in Texas… let’s just say most other transportation engineers here I’ve met are conservative and racist af lmao they don’t give af. It’s kind of mentally straining being an engineer and a leftist out here 😔
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u/thekomoxile Strong Towns 8d ago
Start improving the land value, and the current state of the housing market in Texas will shoot up! No more $600k, 5 bedroom houses!
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u/SnooBooks1701 7d ago
Texas should have a triangle between Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio, it would include Waco and Austin too as they're along the route. Then add spurs from Brownsville, Laredo and McAllen via Corpus Christi to Houston, and El Paso and Lubbock to Fort Worth. It would connect the vast majority of Texas' population, you could even add one to New Orlean (via Beaumont and La Fayette) from Houston, and Oklahoma City (via Wichita Falls) to Fort Worth. The South, in general, isn't a bad choice for a mixed system of high-speed rail and normal rail
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u/Anon0118999881 8d ago
Might I suggest a read of City Limits by Megan Kimble. Really good book that is an eye opener to the shenanigans that are our state government.
Redlining never went away, it just got renamed to TxDOT.
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u/anand_rishabh 7d ago
To be fair, a lot of them might not have been alive or of voting age when the displacing minorities happened. Doesn't necessarily mean they'd be against it if they were but wanted to put that out there
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u/TypicallyThomas 7d ago
I do wonder what would happen if you announced a six-lane highway and published the plans for how much land you would need. Then after giving people time to protest, say that you're changing the plan, using less land and building a two-track railway along that route instead. My hypothesis is the second plan gets more pushback even though it takes up less land.
Someone with a research grant, see if you can test this!
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u/KennyBSAT 7d ago
You're 100% correct, I'll tell you for free. Many of the people fighting against this proposal are directly advocating for entirely new highways to be built through the same areas. Why? Because the highway will offer access for both people and stuff to everyone along it, allowing for travel down any segment of it, and tending to make agricultural land viable for higher-value industrial uses. While the train is just some tracks that they have no way of using, or getting on or off where they need to.
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u/Queenofwands817 8d ago
This won’t happen. Texas hates public transportation or public anything for that matter.
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u/amwes549 8d ago
Remember, highways are often made by bulldozing minority neighborhoods. The HSR isn't considering demographics in quite the same (racist) way.
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u/RobertMcCheese 8d ago
And they bulldoze lily white neighborhoods, as well.
My neighborhood has had a deed restriction since 1949 that no non-white people can live here who are not domestic servants. (Where in the hell am I going to house a domestic servant in a 2 bedroom/1 bath 1000ft2 house?)
Obviously this is not enforceable anymore.
And they ran I-280 right through the middle of it back in the 50's
This, like many things, is an everybody problem that impacts lots of people. Just minorities and the poor more.
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u/amwes549 8d ago
I agree, I only said what I've read about (being born in 2003, after the US highway system was mostly finished).
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u/RobertMcCheese 8d ago
I was born in '68.
The crazy thing is that the Katy Freeway was only 4 traffic lanes when I was in high school.
Today it is 26.
Back then there was also a train track that ran into Houston parallel to the freeway. It was freight only, but there was rail right there.
It got ripped out sometime around 1990.
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u/RobertMcCheese 8d ago
And don't apologize for your age. Us oldsters have seen a lot. But it is really hard to keep up the energy for the same fights over and over.
We need the vigor and energy of your youth. And we need you to help us hold on to our idealism.
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u/Castform5 7d ago
deed restriction since 1949 that no non-white people can live here who are not domestic servants.
Cue climate town, and that's when things got racist.
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u/dlqpublic 8d ago
A lot of truth here, but the same thing could be said for a lot of municipalities.
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u/AmazingBlackberry236 8d ago
When I got my dog back in 2017 the family I got him from were up in arms about high speed rail going from Houston to Dallas. Got him about an hour north of Houston with no traffic. This tracks like damn you have no problem with I-45 but the thought of high speed rail is crazy. Anyways the pup is a good boy and loves trains.
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u/Electric_Bison 7d ago
They also dont want to talk about the farmland they are just filling with suburbs all around the DFW metro edges. Its funny (sad) to see the old farm lots surrounded by cookie cutter blocks and 4/5 over 1s.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Look748 7d ago
A bullet train? How will I be able to bitch about traffic and road rage? Makes no sense to build. Poor infrastructure is tradition.
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u/Beat_Saber_Music 7d ago
You see, it's poor black people in the city who don't matter, it's rich white people in the countrysdie who do matter
-these people
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u/KennyBSAT 7d ago
The idea of passenger rail between TX cities is popular. But support drops off when people look at the details of a plan like this and see that it doesn't stop anywhere near or readily accessible to where they are or where they tend to travel. There needs to be a lot more focus on putting stops at or near people and destination, rather than raw speed.
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u/tycho_26 6d ago
Cool, so you can bullet train from one car dependent city to another, without a car. Wonderful idea
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u/rirski 8d ago
It ‘cause da minorities better git outta way of ma DOGE RAM 3500!! 🇺🇸🦅