RWY-ist thinks all us rail transportation people are too narrow minded read below about how great HSR is to some...
Show-Me Institute study slams high-speed rail proposal Missourinet By Steve Walsh September 28, 2009 A new study takes a close look at high-speed rail in Missouri and concludes Missourians would not get much of a return on their investment. The study was conducted for the Show-Me Institute, a St. Louis-based free-market think tank, in response to federal economic stimulus proposals to expand high-speed rail services throughout the United States. Randal O'Toole, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, authored the study for the Show-Me Institute. O'Toole says Congress has called for $8 billion to be set aside for high-speed rail, and Missouri would only be eligible for a slice of that - hardly enough to cover the costs of constructing or upgrading. O'Toole says upgrading 250 miles of track between Kansas City and St. Louis would cost about $875 million. "That is just an awful lot of money and it is just to upgrade tracks so that passenger trains can run at 90-110 miles an hour on the same tracks as freight trains," said O'Toole in an interview with the Missourinet. "If you wanted to build brand new track and have true high-speed trains, trains going 150-200 miles an hour, it would cost you a lot more - billions or tens of billions of dollars in Missouri." The suggestion is that any additional costs would have to be absorbed by Missouri and other state governments. "We can be sure they're going to be coming back to local, federal, and state taxpayers and saying, 'Give us more money,'" said O'Toole. As far as O'Toole is concerned, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. "Here you've got a proposal, essentially, to spend about a billion dollars," said O'Toole. "And all you're going to get is trains that are now going 79 miles an hour and they might go 90 miles an hour, instead, or a little bit faster." Why would the trains be limited to speeds only reaching 90 miles an hour? "Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which runs a lot of the tracks west of Chicago and St. Louis, says they don't want trains running faster than 90 miles an hour on their tracks," said O'Toole. "Any trains faster than that will be incompatible with their freight trains and they don't want it. So, here you have the federal government saying they will only fund things that run faster than 110 miles an hour and the largest railroad in the country is saying we're not going to accept anything faster than 90 miles an hour." The study shows that ridership on the Amtrak line between Kansas City and St. Louis at just 29 percent capacity, leading O'Toole to say the demand does not exist in Missouri. But would ridership exist if high-speed rail were to become a reality in Missouri? O'Toole says figures for the Northeast Corridor, in which high-speed rail does exist, would indicate ridership would not rise all that much.' "Some of the projections put together by advocates of high-speed rail assume that they will fill 70 percent of the seats," said O'Toole. "Amtrak doesn't come close to filling 70 percent of the seats - even on its high-speed trains between Boston and Washington. It fills only about 55 to 58 percent of those seats." O'Toole suggests if the federal government wants to provide Missouri and other states with money to upgrade passenger train service, it should allow the states to use the money to improve safety and for purposes other than expanding high-speed rail.
Show-Me Institute study slams high-speed rail proposal
Missourinet
By Steve Walsh
September 28, 2009
A new study takes a close look at high-speed rail in Missouri and concludes Missourians would not get much of a return on their investment. The study was conducted for the Show-Me Institute, a St. Louis-based free-market think tank, in response to federal economic stimulus proposals to expand high-speed rail services throughout the United States.
Randal O'Toole, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, authored the study for the Show-Me Institute. O'Toole says Congress has called for $8 billion to be set aside for high-speed rail, and Missouri would only be eligible for a slice of that - hardly enough to cover the costs of constructing or upgrading. O'Toole says upgrading 250 miles of track between Kansas City and St. Louis would cost about $875 million.
"That is just an awful lot of money and it is just to upgrade tracks so that passenger trains can run at 90-110 miles an hour on the same tracks as freight trains," said O'Toole in an interview with the Missourinet. "If you wanted to build brand new track and have true high-speed trains, trains going 150-200 miles an hour, it would cost you a lot more - billions or tens of billions of dollars in Missouri."
The suggestion is that any additional costs would have to be absorbed by Missouri and other state governments.
"We can be sure they're going to be coming back to local, federal, and state taxpayers and saying, 'Give us more money,'" said O'Toole.
As far as O'Toole is concerned, it doesn't really make a lot of sense.
"Here you've got a proposal, essentially, to spend about a billion dollars," said O'Toole. "And all you're going to get is trains that are now going 79 miles an hour and they might go 90 miles an hour, instead, or a little bit faster."
Why would the trains be limited to speeds only reaching 90 miles an hour?
"Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which runs a lot of the tracks west of Chicago and St. Louis, says they don't want trains running faster than 90 miles an hour on their tracks," said O'Toole. "Any trains faster than that will be incompatible with their freight trains and they don't want it. So, here you have the federal government saying they will only fund things that run faster than 110 miles an hour and the largest railroad in the country is saying we're not going to accept anything faster than 90 miles an hour."
The study shows that ridership on the Amtrak line between Kansas City and St. Louis at just 29 percent capacity, leading O'Toole to say the demand does not exist in Missouri. But would ridership exist if high-speed rail were to become a reality in Missouri? O'Toole says figures for the Northeast Corridor, in which high-speed rail does exist, would indicate ridership would not rise all that much.'
"Some of the projections put together by advocates of high-speed rail assume that they will fill 70 percent of the seats," said O'Toole. "Amtrak doesn't come close to filling 70 percent of the seats - even on its high-speed trains between Boston and Washington. It fills only about 55 to 58 percent of those seats."
O'Toole suggests if the federal government wants to provide Missouri and other states with money to upgrade passenger train service, it should allow the states to use the money to improve safety and for purposes other than expanding high-speed rail.
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.
LK - thanks for an informed perspective.
(translation: don't confuse me with the facts; my mind is made up.) ----->>>>>sounds like someone else that posts here.
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.
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.