In April, President Obama confirmed his commitment to fund a
high-speed rail (HSR) program in the United States and extolled the
potential benefits of the $8 billion for HSR that Congress included
in the stimulus package. That commitment grew by another $5 billion
($1 billion per year) when the President released his budget for FY
2010, and in an act of unprecedented fiscal profligacy, the House
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) proposed
to add another $50 billion.
According to recent comments by the head of the Federal Railroad
Administration (FRA), little of these federal monies may go toward
"real" HSR but instead appear likely to benefit some of the
nation's for-profit freight railroads to achieve modestly higher
speeds for existing, half-full Amtrak trains running on their
tracks. Given the extreme need for federal budget deficit
reduction, these HSR programs -- in whatever form -- should be
eliminated in the FY 2010 budget, and the T&I plan should be
vetoed if it ever gets to the President's desk.
"Real" High-Speed Rail
In pushing their HSR agenda, the President, Members of Congress,
and their supporters conjure up images of intercity passengers in
spacious and comfortable rail cars traveling between cities at
speeds approaching 200 miles per hour (mph). Unfortunately for
these HSR proponents, such a service is unlikely to ever be
available in the U.S. because of the extraordinary costs and
because government's so-called HSR initiatives seem unlikely to
provide much support for such projects.
Technically, "real" HSR is defined as any passenger rail system
that maintains speeds of at least 125 mph between destinations.
Notable HSR lines now in operation are the 220-mph line between
Beijing and Tianjin in China, Japanese Shinkansen ("bullet
trains") running at 186 mph, and the French TGV at 185 mph and
above.
Such systems are very expensive to build and also to operate,
because they require new, dedicated rail lines built to specific
tolerances and levels of durability. These levels exceed America's
existing roadbeds.[1] And because of this need, the new rail
lines would also require the acquisition of significant volumes of
land to create the new, secure, right-of-way in which to build the
new roadbed.
Reflective of the inability of America's roadbeds to handle such
speeds, Amtrak's Acela can hit speeds of 150 mph but only on
a 35-mile stretch of the Northeast Corridor. Overall it averages
just 80 mph between Washington, D.C., and New York City, largely
because roadbed deficiencies and existing rail traffic congestion
(due to multiple users) preclude such speeds on the rest of the
Northeast Corridor.[2]
As for the high costs of such projects, the California HSR plan
endorsed by state voters in 2008 is estimated by its advocates to
cost $45 billion, but a comprehensive, independent assessment of
the plan contends that the costs could be as high as $81 billion.[3] To put
these competing numbers in perspective, splitting the difference
between the two cost estimates ($63 billion) would absorb all of
the $50 billion federal HSR fantasy investment promoted by the
T&I Committee.
Sooner or later voters catch on to the misrepresentations HSR
proponents use to advance their cause: In 2000, Florida voters
approved a ballot initiative (absent any cost estimates) to build
an HSR, but in 2004 they reversed that vote once the excessive
costs became apparent.
Ersatz High-Speed Rail, or "Higher
Speed Rail"
What in fact seems to be getting underway is a higher
speed rail policy designed to address bottlenecks on the existing
roadbed (much of which is owned by the private freight railroads)
in order to raise the average speed of trains -- whether freight or
passenger -- from current levels. Thus an investment in, say, a new
bridge, or a third track, or a new switching system that would lead
to an average speed of, say, 58 mph as compared to a current 53 mph
could be eligible for funding under the "higher" speed rail program
now in place. One recent proposal from Ohio would link Cleveland,
Columbus, and Dayton at an average speed of 39 mph.[4]
The nation's passenger rail hobbyists, environmentalists,
multi-national HSR equipment manufacturers, builders and
contractors, and a handful of Congressmen hope and believe that
"real" HSR is what the nation will get from Obama's program. But
many state transportation departments, freight railroads, Amtrak,
and leaders of the FRA seem more interested in applying the funds
to a here-and-there upgrade of the nation's existing rail system,
much of it owned by freight railroads that are required to let
Amtrak and regional commuter rail systems operate on their
roadbed.
Recent proposals to extend federal subsidies to the freight
railroads stem from a 2007 report of a congressional commission
that recommended that regular federal subsidies be provided to
freight railroads.[5] And as is apparent from statements by
Obama's pick to head the FRA, this seems to be the Administration's
intention.
In an interview in August, FRA Administrator Joseph Szabo
indicated that some of the federal grants and much of the
construction will be used to prepare freight lines for more and
faster passenger trains. He further noted that while some fast
passenger trains -- in the range of 200 mph -- will get their own
dedicated rights of way, "in 90 percent of the cases or more, the
host railroad will be the freight."[6]
Fiscal Waste on the Fast Track
So there it is: Of the $8 billion in the stimulus bill promised
to HSR, the head of President Obama's rail initiative suggests that
only a fraction of the money will be devoted to such purposes, the
rest being used mostly for improvements to freight railroads that
indirectly benefit Amtrak's existing trains. But regardless of
which projects get the most money, neither is a productive use of
taxpayer funds. Fiscal conservatives should use the FY 2010 budget
to eliminate these costly and ineffective commitments.
Ronald
D. Utt, Ph.D., is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research
Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies
at The Heritage Foundation.