High Speed Rail : Train Wreck for States

Well now it's not about the train, it about sending a message to the eco-fascists, formally communists and extreme left liberal Democrats from the 60's, that Obama still knows where they live and he's on their side. It's about power and control. It's about "fundamentally changing America".

The governors in Wisconsin and Ohio told Obama to stick his train where the sun doesn't shine. In Wisconsin the cost to maintain the train that would only go about 72 mph and have several stops between Milwaukee and Madison, and parallel the interstate where car are traveling 75 mph with out any stops, would be about 14 million a year. Oh wait, who will pay the overrun costs?

Also, the train would carry about one (1%) of the travelers that would normally use cars.

Given the debt load in most every state in the union now, accepting this money from Obama and the Marxist left is willing putting a rope around your own neck and then jumping off the platform. The best example of this is California. A total disaster. And who brought them this nightmare, decades of liberal Democrats. Who knew?

High-Speed-Train Wreck
Source: Iain Murray and Marc Scribner, "High-Speed-Train Wreck," Competitive Enterprise Institute, November 14, 2010.

The Obama administration and high-speed rail proponents have been pushing hard for a revamped passenger rail network. On October 28, the Department of Transportation gave out $2.4 billion in grants to high-speed rail projects. This is on top of the $8 billion that was included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the "stimulus" package.

But in all of their cheerleading, high-speed passenger rail proponents never mention what is perhaps the most damning fact about these projects, say Iain Murray, vice president for strategy, and Marc Scribner, land use and transportation policy analyst, with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Most are not even considered high-speed by international standards.

In Western Europe, for instance, high-speed rail lines must reach a minimum of 125 miles per hour (mph) on upgraded track and 160 mph for new track.
China has trains that can reach speeds in excess of 260 mph for limited stretches.
In contrast, only three of the United States' eight new high-speed rail corridors that received funding will feature trains capable of reaching speeds in excess of 110 mph.

Embarrassingly, passenger trains in the 1940s regularly met or exceeded these speeds. Only California's proposed high-speed rail corridor would resemble anything close to a "modern" European or Asian passenger rail line, say Murray and Scribner.

No one can predict what the transportation needs and preferences of future Americans will be. Thankfully, it is never too late for the Department of Transportation to finally abandon its long-standing commitment to central planning.