With all due respect, Senator Levin, your enthusiasm for receiving $200 million from Florida's rejected federal high-speed rail grant is misplaced.
You have not explained how having high-speed rail will make Michigan competitive. Your state was competitive in the heyday of the auto industry, which you dominated. But, by ignoring the lessons from Germany and Japan, the auto industry couldn't "compete" with overseas manufacturing.
Why not? One major reason was that the competing nations focused on quality, which Detroit ignored. W.E. Deming, ignored by US industry, introduced "quality managementl" in Japan. The record is unambiguous. While Detroit was competing internally with making "big boats" that floated down the highway and lasted three years, Germany introduced the Beetle for, at that time, $1,500. Japan's cars, meanwhile, lasted for decades.
Let's just say that the decline of the steel industry in Gary and Pittsburgh, and the decline of the auto industry in your state, Sir, have nothing to do with the speed of rail transportation for people. Do you believe that if Michigan had high-speed rail, like Germany or Japan, the world would start buying more cars from the US than from those countries? The logic of such thinking escapes me.
Senator Levin, when you say," Previous generations of Michiganians built the roads and the tracks and the ports and the factories that helped make our state the arsenal of democracy and the engine of middle-class prosperity." You are quite correct. What you are talking about is the facilitation of industry and manufacturing; the movement of goods. This had very little to do with the movement of people, however.
Is it not clear that moving people on high-speed trains at high cost will contribute little or nothing to your state's economy except the churning of those funds which will pay for temporary construction employment? It will still be the deficit Amtrak operations after all those capital funds are gone.
You speak of "business travellers and vacationers." Is that what you are banking on -- tourism -- for the improvement of the economy in a state where the job losses in the auto industry are among the nation's worst? Michigan, whatever it's attractions, do not compare with France, Germany or Italy; you will have to admit that.
We have discussed the construction jobs notion for some time, pointing out how, in California, the hundreds of thousands of construction jobs are not actually people, but man-years. Beware of job count inflation; it's standard practice among infrastructure promoters seeking government funds.
Finally, Senator, I need to have it explained how there is a competition among transit systems world wide. Is there a transit Olympics, which we are losing to those other HSR countries for lack of HSR here?
In your last thought you speak of pay-off for the people of Michigan. I'm afraid that this pay-off with be for the contractors, consultants, local elected officials, and all those who will derive direct rewards from those funds. The people of Michigan will end up with the debts and deficits incurred by Amtrak but otherwise will have little to show for your "achievement."
Sorry, Senator Levin.
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http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20110517/OPINION02/105170309
Carl Levin: High-speed rail can make state more competitive
May 17, 2011 |
Michigan just got a second helping of good news in our drive to make our state more competitive in the 21st-century global economy.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood came to Michigan to announce that Michigan will receive nearly $200 million to bring high-speed passenger rail service to the state. The money will help pay for track improvements, more powerful locomotives, new passenger cars and other improvements necessary to create a safe, comfortable high-speed link between the Detroit area and Chicago.
The high-speed link will give business travelers and vacationers another efficient transportation option along a route already busy with auto and air traffic. It will connect our state with a growing Midwest network that will move travelers more affordably and with more energy efficiency than ever before. And Michigan will benefit immediately from the jobs created by construction projects along the line.
Specifically, the money will improve rail lines between Kalamazoo and Dearborn, a key part of the planned high-speed network. Some of the funding will also help engineer a new rail and bus station in Ann Arbor.
There are lots of people who made the announcement possible. Among them is Secretary LaHood, with whom Michigan's congressional delegation has worked on high-speed rail, on growing our domestic auto industry and
Our state Department of Transportation did a lot of hard work in putting together a plan that won federal approval, as did local officials along the route.
Gov. Rick Snyder also helped bring this good news to Michigan. Our state got the opportunity to win this funding because officials in Florida turned down a similar grant. Whatever Florida's reasons for doing so, Gov. Snyder didn't turn down the funding and deserves thanks.
Back in October, I wrote about another funding announcement, more than $160 million for the Michigan-to-Chicago high-speed link and other rail projects in the state. Then, as now, I believe these projects are an important part of our economic future.
Creation of a high-speed rail network would move our country toward the same competitive transportation system that many of our global competitors now enjoy. Such a system would create jobs both as we build it, with American workers building the trains and rails, and when it is completed, by promoting tourism and commerce and making travel between cities more affordable and convenient. And it would reduce our dependence on foreign oil because rail service can move passengers more efficiently than other modes of transportation.
Previous generations of Michiganians built the roads and the tracks and the ports and the factories that helped make our state the arsenal of democracy and the engine of middle-class prosperity.
It falls to us to build for future generations. Success for them means moving people and goods faster, more cheaply and with more energy efficiency than ever before.
High-speed rail is an important piece of that. If our competitors in China and Japan and Europe can succeed with high-speed rail, there is no reason we can't too.
I'm confident this project is going to pay off for the people of Michigan and for the country. This project and others like it will help create jobs, grow our state's economy and secure a better future for the generations to come.
Carl Levin is the [Democratic] senior U.S. senator from Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Write him at: Russell Senate Office Building Room SR-269, Washington, D.C. 20510; call him at: (202) 224-6221; or e-mail him at: http://levin.senate.gov/contact/.
