Debate Over High-Speed Rail Plan Intensifies

Proponents of the Obama Administration’s high-speed rail initiative have been intensely busy promoting the project in recent weeks, but harsh requirements proposed by the White House are jeopardizing necessary cooperation from the railroad industry.

Noteworthy recent events included a June 11 U.S. Department of Transportation announcement of the first round of funding for HSR projects; a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report assessing the prospects for the federal HSR Program ( GAO-10-625, June 17, 2010); a U.S. Conference of Mayors report predicting significant economic benefits from the HSR program; and a policy statement by the HSR Development Council of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) setting forth recommended policy principles for the federal HSR initiative.

Also keeping HSR in the public eye have been various advocacy groups, such as the OneRail Coalition, a group of rail industry stakeholders; the Passenger Rail Coalition, representing state DOTs’ rail interests; various regional HSR associations; and two freshly minted lobbying organizations, the American High Speed Rail Alliance and the U.S. High Speed Rail Association.

‘Stunned’ by Harsh Terms
Adding controversy to the HSR initiative, however, was the recent Federal Railroad Administration directive setting the terms of the "Stakeholder Agreements" to be negotiated between state DOTs and the Class I railroads participating in the HSR program. The rail industry was reported to be "stunned" by the peremptory tone and burdensome terms of the FRA directive that was reportedly drafted without the parties’ advance knowledge or participation.

Despite reassuring statements from U.S. DOT, the threat of some of the Class I railroads walking away from the HSR program and effectively derailing portions of the administration’s initiative is still considered a possibility.

Need for HSR Doubted
Some critics contest the claimed need for high-speed passenger rail service, arguing even very fast trains cannot compete with automobile or air transportation.

At a June 25 seminar at the Heritage Foundation, the well-known and outspoken rail skeptic (and Heartland Institute Senior Fellow for Urban Growth and Transit Policy) Wendell Cox used the California high-speed rail project as a case in point. Calling it "untimely extravagance," Cox argued the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco HSR line is based on unrealistic financial assumptions, highly optimistic ridership projections, understated cost forecasts, exaggerated benefits from greenhouse gas reductions, and unachievable travel times.

Also issuing a skeptical verdict on HSR have been several reports and articles, notably a Reason Foundation study, “The California HSR Proposal: A Due Diligence Report,” by Wendell Cox and Joseph Vranich; a March 19 Heritage Foundation paper, "America’s Coming High-Speed Rail Financial Disaster," by Senior Research Fellow Ronald Utt; "The Trouble With High Speed Rail," by the Hoover Institution’s Liam Julian (Policy Review, June 2010); and a commentary by the Progressive Policy Institute’s Mark Reutter ("The Right Track: Improving Obama’s High Speed Rail Program," February 17, 2010).

The blogosphere has likewise weighed in with a mix of critical opinions.

Action Has Been Scarce
Additional critical opinion has centered on the extent to which the administration’s $8 billion "high speed rail" initiative will actually advance the goal of high-speed rail service in the United States.

Administration officials argue the program is but a "down payment" toward a true high-speed passenger rail system of the kind deployed in Europe and the Far East. But the administration’s actions belie its rhetoric, as the federal government’s efforts have been heavily focused on upgrading existing Class I freight rail infrastructure instead of on laying foundations for a true high-speed rail system.

Incremental Approach
The Obama administration has evidenced a laudable desire to introduce a more multimodal approach to national transportation policy, restore more modal balance to the transportation system, and elevate the importance of improving the nation’s freight delivery system.

The allocation of the $8 billion in HSR funds continues the emphasis on incremental improvements in existing rail infrastructure. Twenty-eight of the 30 HSR grants the administration awarded under the Recovery Act—representing 56 percent of the total dollar amount of the HSR awards ($3.5 billion)—went for relatively minor enhancements such as overhauling track and signal systems, improving grade crossings, refurbishing existing stations, and implementing positive train control technology.

Althoughs these improvements might allow passenger trains to increase speeds in the HSR-designated corridors, they will not move the country any closer to achieving a true national high-speed rail vision as promised in White House press releases and speeches of federal transportation officials.

HSR Candidates Identified
We think a strong case can be made that true high-speed rail between major city-pairs separated by less than 300-400 miles will eventually be necessary in the United States, in order to relieve unacceptable levels of airport and air traffic congestion. In Europe, air service between Paris andBrussels (162 miles), Paris and Lyon (246 miles) and Cologne and Frankfurt (94 miles) has already been completely replaced by high-speed rail.

In the United States, seven heavily traveled corridors under 400 miles in length are logical candidates for high-speed service (Congressional Research Service, "High Speed Rail in the United States," December 8, 2009).

But building even such a limited number of dedicated high-speed rail lines would require decades of a sustained national commitment spanning many administrations and requiring its own dedicated source of revenue outside the Highway Trust Fund.

C. Kenneth Orski (korski@verizon.net) is editor and publisher of the transportation newsletter Innovation NewsBriefs, where an earlier version of this article was published. Used with permission.