Exhibits, Shows and Displays

What's the RECOUPMENT PERIOD for an $8 billion Maglev train from Las Vegas to Disneyland?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid successfully got an $8 billion MagLev high speed train project (from Las Vegas to Disneyland) into the $787 billion Stimulus Bill that just passed. Reid of course is from Nevada. No pork or earmarks in this bill, right? I'm trying to do the financial analysis on this "investment" project to get a sense of how stimulative it supposedly might be. Your help is appreciated. Yahoo Maps shows 271 miles from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. A train might travel in more of a straight line (how many houses disrupted? Another good question...), but as an approximation, we can use 271 miles. So at $8 billion, that's about $29.5 million per mile. Disneyland tickets for 1 day sell for $84 for kids ages 3 to 9 and $94 for ages 10 and over, or let's say $89 on average. So the $8 billion equates to about 89.9 million Disneyland tickets. If open 365 days, that's 246,000 tickets a day, but the park doesn't hold that many. One source shows daily attendance by time of year going from a low of about 11,000 to a high of 70,000. See: http://www.scottware.com.au/theme/feature/atend.htm So I'm assuming park capacity at 70,000 and just by eyeballing that graph comparing the red areas of attendance to the white areas of capacity, I'm guestimating the park is about 50% full on average with excess capacity of 50% or 35,000 tickets per day. This is what the MagLev train could try to fill. So if you've got 89.9 million tickets at $89 on average for each in order to recoup the $8 billion MagLev train investment, with excess daily capacity at 35,000 tickets, it would take 2568 days or 7 years to achieve recoupment on the investment. But that of course would be just to Disney as if Disney invested the $8 billion itself, and it won't be. American taxpayers will be footing the bill. Because this train is so heavily going to favor Disneyland (et. al.) as well as whatever Las Vegas casinos, hotels, restaurants, etc., that will be in the vicinity of the MagLev station, I say the AMERICAN PEOPLE should be issued shares of stock in those companies and establishments since we are footing the CAPITAL INVESTMENT to support those businesses. Or the least these guys can do is issue a free Disneyland ticket to every taxpayer who pays their taxes on time. Jeez Louise! As it stands, this is the crummiest "vacation package" I've ever been forced to invest in! I don't live in either Las Vegas or L.A. so I'm wondering how my paying for this $8 billion MagLev train is going to benefit me. I need to see what projects in this Stimulus Bill are scheduled for my state but my sense is there are definite "winner states" and "loser states" in this Stimulus Bill and I ask if in the mad dash to write it and get it passed, was there any conscious ANALYSIS of where the money was needed the most to create the most impact for the overall economy? Or might it have something to do with being Speaker of the House (Pelosi) or Senate Majority Leader (Reid)? No pork or earmarks in THIS bill, right Mr. Obama? NOTE: The above numbers are just an approximation and I WELCOME refined figures or other analysis which might support or not support the rationality of this investment decision. This is the domain of investment analysis so if you have a background or training in this, your feedback is especially welcome since I don't think Congress is doing any similar analysis before they vote us all into the Poor House.

Public Comments

1. The high-speed train from Southern California to Las Vegas has been promoted for more than 30 years. It won't happen. Too many environmental issues and the train can't go very fast on winding mountain tracks. The cost of a train ticket will be far more than any airplane ticket. The stimulus package apparently contains money put in by Ried for a study, not for construction. The plan is to take people to Vegas, not Vegas residents to Disneyland. Where do they intend to find parking spaces for all those passengers and who is going to pay $100 for a ticket when the trip won't be much faster than driving?
2. 1) It can't be built for $30 million per mile. 2) Who would run it, Amtrak? Sure, at a loss, so we'll continue to pay for years. 3) Plane tickets will be cheaper. 4) Investment decision? It's not an investment - if it was a money making proposition it would already have been built! If it looks like a pig and smells like bacon, it's PORK.
3. Well, I don't think it can really be built for $8B. It would probably cost more than that just to get the rights of way in place. The goal is to boost tourism for Las Vegas, not Disneyland. I imagine that the casinos would subsidize the fares for their preferred guests, much like they pay the bus drivers to drop their passengers off for hours at a time. A MagLev train can travel at up to 200 mph, so it would make for a quick trip to Las Vegas. I rode the MagLev from Pudong to Shanghai a couple of years ago. It was fun and fast. I don't think anyone has read the entire bill, and certainly those that voted for it did not. It is inconceivable that anyone could given only about nine hours transpired from final printing to the vote on the floor. I will be dissecting it for my blog over the next several weeks, so stay tuned for updates on the measure. At least now I know what we can argue about since college football's season is over. Hang on to your wallets, folks. It's going to be a bumpy ride!