Let's begin with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg testifying that he likes high-speed rail for the Northeast corridor. He's been on the Maglev train from the Shanghai airport into town and didn't spill his coffee. So, he presumably discovers, why can't we have that here? To be fair, the head of the Transportation Committee in the House, John Mica, has also said that the Northeast corridor ought to have a high-speed train. Hypothetically, connecting the major northeast corridor cities with a very fast train seems like a good idea. But, the devil is in the realities and details.
The projected cost for this Washington to Boston (by way of New York City) train is $117 billion. It's about the same distance as the San Francisco to Los Angeles route. Of course, it would have to pass through the most populous parts of the United States. I'm guessing that the $117 billion is the entry fee and that the eminent domain issues alone will be of an as yet unimagined magnitude.
Bloomberg plays the competition game here. They have it or are going to get it(Asia; the Middle East (?) ). We don't have it. They have more toys than we do, etc.etc. You know the rest of this routine by now.
The other debate is the Liberal/Conservative one. Liberals want the government to buy this train and keep it out of greedy corporate hands. Their true purpose is fixing unemployment and the economy. A few Conservatives want the private sector to do it in order to keep it out of stupid bureaucratic hands. Oh, and make money, besides. But, more important, they want to reduce the deficit and not spend the money at all. I say, "A plague on both their houses!"
Yes -- you read that right -- make money. "The project would cost $117 billion over 30 years but could eventually yield $900 million in annual operating surpluses." This is from the Smerd article beneath the one here from the Wall Street Journal which is also about Bloomberg and the northeast corridor. Millions of annual operating surpluses. Where have we heard that one before?
"Florida Republican Rep. John Mica. . . .has voiced doubts about whether Amtrak capacity to build a true high-speed rail service — suggesting that private companies might do better." Wait, didn't the private operators run all these passenger services during the "Golden Age of Railroading" in the United States? Didn't they lose money and the operators were glad to turn them all over to the US government which created Amtrak in 1971? And isn't Amtrak costing the taxpayers $1.5 billion or more annually?
Are you as confused as I am? If passengers had to pay the full, real costs of their train seats on HSR, Bloomberg the billionaire would by one of the very few who could afford it. We are not calling this HSR a luxury train for nothing. Profits? Surplus revenues? I don't think so. It's not going to be the Orient Express.
One gets the impression that there is some kind of contagious high-speed-rail disease that affects the minds of many politicians, and they start hallucinating these bizarre inflated numbers like development costs, ridership and profits, or revenues. They are intoxicated with the glorious benefits that HSR will bestow on all of us, and at nearly no cost. They have lost their grip on reality, the only cure for which is sufficient empirically-based information that is not marketing hype. Unfortunately, these wretched souls are immune to such interventions.
In the second article Jeremy Smerd suggests that "both parties" support HSR for New York, which, I presume is short-hand for the northeast corridor. That's a stretch. We don't actually know which party Bloomberg belongs to right now. And we do know that, although he thinks that the Northeast corridor is the most eligible, John Mica, being a conservative Republican, has not actually positioned himself as a HSR enthusiast.
Let's conclude here with a quotation from Michael Bloomberg who demonstrates that he's no fool, although his concluding thought suggests that he has been scammed by the rail promoters. “What is America waiting for? I don’t want to spend money we don’t have. I’m sympathetic to the cost of debt. I’m sympathetic to encumbering our descendents with the cost of building things. But this is not wasting money.” I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, but this is the worst sort of waste of money. That's why it's properly called a boondoggle. And that is not what America is waiting for!
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JANUARY 27, 2011, 2:44 PM ET
Bloomberg Joins Obama’s Push for High-Speed Rail
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, center, at Grand Central Terminal for a congressional hearing Thursday about high-speed rail.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg strongly endorsed high-speed rail in the Northeast corridor during a congressional hearing at Grand Central Terminal Thursday, describing it as a boon for both the region and the nation.
As The Journal reported, House lawmakers held the hearing on future of rail service two days after President Barack Obama used his State of the Union speech to make the case for significantly expanded high-speed rail. House Republicans have already signaled their intent to block such spending.
Florida Republican Rep. John Mica, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leading Thursday’s hearing, has voiced doubts about whether Amtrak capacity to build a true high-speed rail service — suggesting that private companies might do better.
Bloomberg arrived late to the hearing because he first gave the public an update on the city’s response to the snow storm. When he arrived, the mayor recounted a 2007 visit to Shanghai, where he boarded a magnetic levitation train that travels at 250 miles per hour.
“I had a full cup of coffee and I watched the coffee,” the mayor said. “It didn’t vibrate once. It was really quite amazing. And other countries are trying to do the same thing, create other modes of transportation that are much more efficient, much more rapid and answer the needs in a global world.”
In Asia and the Middle East, Bloomberg explained, bullet trains are being built while American transportation infrastructure languishes. “And we are sitting here!” he said. “What is America waiting for? I don’t want to spend money we don’t have. I’m sympathetic to the cost of debt. I’m sympathetic to encumbering our descendents with the cost of building things. But this is not wasting money.”
The mayor complained that the current federal plan for high-speed rail projects allots just over 1% to the Northeast. “That simply just doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “What we need is a new approach to spending transportation money — one that is not dictated by politics, but based on economics.”
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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Political parties agree on high-speed rail for NY
President Barack Obama is championing similar moves, but actually constructing a 427-mile, high-speed railway between Washington and Boston will not be a slam dunk.
By Jeremy Smerd
Published: January 27, 2011 - 3:09 pm
Build a high-speed rail network in the Northeast and passengers will abandon clogged airports, drivers will leave their cars at home and businesses will flock to rail hubs. On these points, Democrats and Republicans, unions and private investors, transportation advocates and chambers of commerce agree.
But if a Congressional hearing held Thursday is any guide, actually building a high-speed rail line along the 427-mile stretch between Washington and Boston is easier said than done.
President Barack Obama this week urged Congress to invest in high-speed rail, lest the U.S. remain dependent on foreign oil. The nation's investment in infrastructure continues to lag behind Europe and China, which will invest $300 billion toward high-speed rails by 2020. On Thursday, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing on a balcony at Grand Central Terminal to explore how the most densely populated region in the country might progress with its long-standing plans to move mass transit into the 21st century.
Despite a fractured political climate, Republicans and Democrats both expressed support for building high-speed rail in the northeast and Democrats were open to private financing of the project.
An Amtrak study published last September estimated that high-speed rail could cut a trip from Boston to New York by almost half, to less than 2 hours. Current Amtrak Acela trains reach speeds of between 62 and 85 miles per hour. Amtrak's design calls for a train that could travel 220 miles per hour, though transportation advocates believe slower speeds might be more feasible. The goal is to make taking the train faster than taking a plane.
The project would cost $117 billion over 30 years but could eventually yield $900 million in annual operating surpluses.
Republicans voiced unanimous support for financing the project through public-private partnerships, a notion that unions largely oppose but one which Democrats are warming up to.
“Yes, we want private-sector involvement to the extent we can get it,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler of Manhattan, a leading transportation advocate.
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger led a transportation advocacy group called Building America's Future, said the federal government could lease the operational rights to a private company or sell the assets completely. That would give private companies more incentive to invest in track maintenance but it would give government little power to control ticket prices, which normally do not cover half the cost of operating and maintaining public-transportation infrastructure.
The United States High Speed Rail Association, a proponent of privatization, said during Thursday's testimony that England is a model. Last year the British government auctioned off a 30-year concession for the right to own and operate its first high-speed railway linking London to the English Channel Tunnel, a sale that generated $3.4 billion from a consortium of two Canadian pension funds.
The northeast corridor is an ideal place to invest in high-speed rail because its 50 million residents produce 20% of the nation's gross domestic product. Mr. Obama made rail investment a major component of the federal stimulus plan, but much of it was diffused across too many states and projects, transportation committee members and advocates said. Even if all the needed money were available, a high-speed rail project in the northeast is far from being “shovel-ready.”
Petra Todorovich, director of the Regional Plan Association's infrastructure initiative, America 2050, said the project is being held up because an up-to-date environmental impact study has not yet begun. As a result, the project has missed out on two rounds of federal high-speed rail funding. That study could take years, if only because high-speed rail requires five minutes of acceleration over 16 miles of straight track to reach speeds of 200 miles per hour—no small feat in the country's most densely populated region.
©2011 Crain Communications Inc.
