Unfortunately, BacktotheFuture, Mr. O'Toole has been spreading that propaganda all over the country to any paper that would pulish his screed on its op-ed page.  He's actually become quitge repetitious.  My problem is not with his conclusion; I'm doubtful that we will see a real HSR network in this country, but he is an ideologue and comes at the issue from an ideological perspective (translation: don't confuse me with the facts; my mind is made up.)  I, on the other hand, come at it from an economic perspective.  I don't see this country ponying up the kind of money it would take, especially when one considers the problems of health care, education, housing, etc., that no doubt will take priority over HSR.  I have no ideological opposition, believing that the American electorate can have anything it wants that it is willing to pay for.  O'Toole and his ilk would not let the public make up its own mind - they obviously know better.

Thanks for the kind words, BacktotheFuture.  You gave me a good chuckle.  I doubt I'll ever be confused with Mikey.

Agreed about Mr. O'Toole, but this article touches on an issue worth discussing and that is who should be subsidizing local or regional passenger rail.  I agree that there are such operations that are worthy of subsidy, but it seems that everyone looks to the Federal government for that money, which, of course, we all know is free.  In my opinion, these operations should be financed locally, they benefit the local economy, they should be paid for by the local economy.  Perhaps then there would be a little more scrutiny of costs; it would also tend to favor areas of higher population density, which have both the need and the necessary tax base.

JohnS:  Points well taken and made.  Way back in1971, in the Nixon Administration, then-UMTA (FTA today) had a policy handed down from the White House that UMTA would fund demonstration grants but provide no money for operations.  That way, if NY wanted to operate 24-hours a day, it could do so with its own money.  Communities that didn't want that level of service were free to tax themselves less and pay for that which they were willing to pay for.  What you have touched on is one of my pet complaints.  This country has no national transportation policy, and because it doesn't, we get bogged down in debate over who should get how much, each case being an excuse to start the debate all over again.

As for your desire not to fund local or regional passenger rail, think of this:  We are a nation, a big nation.  Some states tend to be libertarian in their political philosphies and would not fund passenger rail at all (Colorado is a fine example).  Can we afford to toss the issue off to states and local bodies and run the risk of an even more disjointed system than we have today?  You're right; this is a subject that needs to be discussed.

Of course the public will not agree to funding High Speed Rail.  We cannot, as citizens of this great land, even agree to provide some form of a health safety net to those unfortunate enough to lose their jobs, or unable to find decent jobs that provide access to reasonably priced health care in these tough economic times.  Only when someone finds a way to make a whole lot of money in HSR will the PR campaign begin in earnest to espouse the value of such a project... and the lemmings will follow.

Actually, I think the local option is a good way to address both the issue of regional transport and health care, at least until we find a model that clearly works.  I think if Colorado elects not to fund passenger rail, but New Jersey does, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  If one of them starts to show a clear economic benefit from its choice, then it points the way for the rest of the country.  In health care, we see Massachusetts going its own way, doesn't sound too attractive to me at this point, but they are trying something

Your New Jersey - Colorado example makes some sense.  But what about a Chicago - Los Angeles service if Kansas chooses not to go along?  Does the rest of the country allow a state to screw up passenger transportation - or health care - or education. If we're going to allow that, we might as well be 50 sovereign nations and no longer call us a country.  There are many programs from which I get no direct or immediate benefit, but I support them because I put the interest of the entire nation above the interests of the state in which I reside.  Even within that state, I pay local taxes earmarked for rail transit that doesn't make it to part of the metropolitan area.  It's the price we all pay for being part of a community.  Maybe Massachusetts is going its own way because it got tired of waiting for a national program.  The Massachusetts program was started by a Republican governor, by the way, and that gentleman hasn't hesitated to condemn the Obama approach.  I think that's called playing politics.

OK, have to totally agree that the great BENRUS clock that hangs high in Pennsylvania Station has been ticking backwards for half a century...

Considering that there has been no discussion here about Penn Station or its Benrus clock, it safely can be said that RAILWAYIST is a day late and a dollar short - again.

Who pays for the high speed rail lines in the other countries? If we are going to go high speed, 90mph is slow speed compared to other countries. I would say, failure would be just around the curve.

Who pays for the high speed rail lines in the other countries? If we are going to go high speed, 90mph is slow speed compared to other countries. I would say, failure would be just around the curve.

Rail passenger service - high- or low-speed - doesn't pay for itself anywhere in the world.  Some operations cover operating costs, but none cover both variable and fixed costs.  Every time I travel on a foreign train I thank the taxpayers of the country where I am for subsidizing my travels.

European and Japanese taxpayers accept the situation because mobility is valuable to them.  Ever try to park a car in the central business district of almost any city outside North America?  Add in expensive petrol, high taxes on motor vehicles and you have a reason for citizens to tax themselves for an efficient, high-frequency, passenger system.  In this country, distances, low taxes, cheaper fuel all add up to the current less-than-robust passenger rail system.

By the way, DennisMoore, how do you define "failure"?  More subsidies needed?  Fewer riders?  All of the above?

Just to move the discussion to transportation policy and how it is paid for......mass transit of all kinds is paid for in a number of ways at a number of levels of government.  Is it worth it?  When Federal, State, and local $$$ go into it the answer is politically, yes.  The same is true of the air system.  The entire air traffic control system of the world was built by the US in WW II (and the US portion is still paid for by the Feds today).  The Feds also directly subsidize regional airlines.  Airports are financed and operated by localities.  Bankers (ok, I never claimed they were very bright) finance aircraft.  Airlines hire and train folks (more expensive today since the Feds train fewer and fewer pilots), lease airplanes, and pay user fees.  Should be an easy business to run.  Apparently, with many chickens coming home to roost, it is not.

This discussion SHOULD be about relative passenger demand and relative cost.  Sure would be a lot more interesting than a Fox News debate.

Only one problem with your comment, olddj, and that is too many economic illiterates.  They come in two varieties: the truly illiterate who think that everything comes at no cost; and the ideological, who refuse to allow the facts to interfere with their preconceived conclusions.  But, you're right.  This should morph into a discussion of relative supply and demand and costs.  Who knows?  Perhaps we'd even come up with a transportatin investment policy.  The feds sure haven't.

Something worth looking at, tha graphically explains differences in transportation patterns and needs:

upload.wikimedia.org/.../Population_density.png

A map of the world showing population density.  I wouldn't swear to its exact accuracy, and it's 15 years out of date,  but it is at least pretty close.  It shows why rational Chinese, rational Europeans and rational USAnians might prefer a different transportation mix, and why the prefered solution might vary inside political borders.

Now, compare that with this more detailed one, and it gives more clues to where HSR might really belong, and where it makes less sense, and no sense.

upload.wikimedia.org/.../World_population_density_1994.png

So, who benefits from rail transportation?  The passengers and the shippers do.  Otherwise, why would they choose to use it?  The non-users get transportation benefits, too.  Every passenger car or truck that gets taken off a busy highway because somebody chose to use rail transportation makes that highway a little less congested and a little safer for those that continue to use the highway.  In highway corridors that are highly congested, those benefits to highway users add up fast.  In corridors where the benefits to rail users and highway users exceed the costs of rail transportation, rail transportation becomes economically feasible.  The value of rail transportation cannot be measured merely in terms of seats filled, farebox recovery, or carloads, the value to non-users of rail must be figured in as well.  That is why public support and public-private partnerships have a role in the development of our rail transportation system.  

Ed Hanscom asks: "So, who benefits from rail transportation?  The passengers and the shippers do.  Otherwise, why would they choose to use it?"

I wish it were that clear.  They might be using it because it is less costly to them than alternatives and it may be less costly because of subsidies paid for by all taxpayers.  The measure of something's value can be determined in most cases by the willingness of customers to pay a market price for the goods or services.  Highway users - at least the big truck segment - are subsidized.  Don't you think that distorts the market choice of shippers deciding on truck vs. rail movement?  

Mr. Hanscom also says: "The value of rail transportation cannot be measured merely in terms of seats filled, farebox recovery, or carloads, the value to non-users of rail must be figured in as well."  

Yes, it can and it must be measured, otherwise policy makers don't have valid information on which to base decisions.  And, not to too argumentative, but non-users of rail are making a clear statement that rail service is of no value to them - otherwise they would not be non-users.

I believe this is incorrect: 'Yes, it can and it must be measured, otherwise policy makers don't have valid information on which to base decisions.  And, not to too argumentative, but non-users of rail are making a clear statement that rail service is of no value to them - otherwise they would not be non-users.'

Since I don't have a boat, are the nation's waterways of no use to me?  sure they are, think of all the freight that moves there instead of on the road in front of me.

Since I don't ever plan on driving in Alabama, are all the dollars spent on highways there of no use to me?  After all I have no intention of ever driving on them!  No of course they are of use to me, think of the oil industry traffic to supply the drilling that happens there.

I believe Mr. Hanscom is correct when he states that the value of rail transportation cannont be measured merely in terms of seats filled, farebox recovery, or carloads.  Indeed there is a larger picture to be considered here.

sevenbrewer:  You and Mr. Hanscom may be correct.  I've been wrong before and I hope to be wrong again in the future.  In this case, though, I think we largely have a semantic rather than a substantive difference.  In our democratic (small D) society, government investment decisions are supposedly made pursuant to cost/benefit studies that are performed so that policy makers can make more informed decisions.  So, you may not own a boat, and the navigable waterways may, in fact, remove highway traffic from the road in front of you (actually, they're more likely to remove bulk shipments from the railroad, as little of the barge industry's traffic is competitive with trucks), but the value can and is measured.  And if the waterway operator is subsidized, how is the policy maker supposed to determine the value the barge operator brings to the society or the value that the railroad brings, especially when it is losing traffic to the water carrier that is subsidized?  Obvioulsy, you can impute a value to each mode for each kind of traffic, but when all is said and done, it's still measured and evaluated.  Otherwise, you might as well wet your finger and hold it up in the air to reach conclusions.  I prefer measuring, myself.

Perhaps this should be a new thread, altogether, but I got to thinking about the comments of Ed Hanscom and sevenbrewer, and I wonder if what we really are seeing is the different perspectives of people who work in the public sector and those who work in the private sector.  Both Messrs. Hansom and sevenbrewer are public sector individuals.  I am a private sector type.  As I said in my previous comment, they may be right, but in this case I think the difference is in how one measures.  To the public sector, a rail service may be more than seats filled, farebox recovery, carloads, etc.  A value can and must be imputed.  I would be very surprised if Metra (sevenbrewer) and the State of Maine (EdHansom) did not apply numerical measures to each of the factors that are considered when making a public investment in new service or expanded capacity.  

There's a whole sub-family of econometrics aimed at transportation as a Public Good (in the strict sense) that are at least honored in the breach when initial planning is done.  The problem, of course, is that the funding mechanism is based on what is politically practical, and that often skews projects toward less efficient use of resources in two ways.  One is that stimulus is often an explicit goal- more jobs beats more efficiency; and projects that have pre-identified stakeholders always win over ones with general benefit.

anmccaff:  I think you have expressed bluntly and succinctly the point I was only alluding to.  Our friends at the Cato Institute, Reason Foundation and similar institutions would argue strenuously that everything can and must be measured.  While I rarely agree with the libertarians, this is one time that I do.  To say that the value of rail transportation cannot me measured "merely"" in terms of seats filled, farebox recovery or carloads is pure sophistry.  If they cannot be measured, just how are public policy decisions to be made?

CATO - just a rotten TOMATO/---REASON - you're OUT OF SEASON---LIBERTARIANS - Regressarians unlimited. That bunch of REGRESSIVE-CONSERVATIVES just want Americans to keep their schnouts en die Oil Trough! & keep us as automobile-dependant puppets of PETROPOLIS...if not---we will boil in a pot of the Caliphs Oil...Cadillacs, all shiny & new!

Your attempt at humor is noted, RAILWAYIST, but is invalid.  You clearly do not understand the Cato Institute or any of the libertarian-oriented think tanks.  They don't care about oil or automobiles.  They are anti-tax and anti-government with the exception of national defense.  They are Ayn Rand disciples.  Of course, one thing they forget or ignore is that Ayn Rand wrote fiction and Dagny Taggart was a fictional character.