Next week President Obama will send his fiscal year 2012 budget to Congress. One sign that he’s not serious about cutting the deficit is his plan to spend $53 billion over the next six years on high-speed rail, $8 billion in 2012. Speaking in Philadelphia on Wednesday, Vice President Biden declared, “As a long time Amtrak rider and advocate, I understand the need to invest in a modern rail system that will help connect communities, reduce congestion and create quality, skilled manufacturing jobs that cannot be outsourced.” But most Americans don’t use railroads, they use cars. High-speed rail is an expensive form of transportation that will reach only small segments of the country and that will not substitute for highways.
Developing a true, nationwide high-speed rail network would cost far more than $53 billion. Building high-speed lines — capable of speeds of 150 to 200 miles per hour — on newly laid track, as well as incremental improvements in existing rail infrastructure, could cost between $250 billion and $500 billion, perhaps more. Obama’s initial payment would be just the first drop in the bucket.
Some Americans admire the railroads they see on trips to Europe and Japan and think America should have similar trains. But this ignores the exceptionally different demographic and economic environments.
European and Japanese populations live close together, which makes train travel more efficient, even though railroads benefit from substantial government subsidies, paid for by higher taxes.
Their fuel prices, including taxes, are higher, making driving more expensive relative to other travel options. Their land area is relatively smaller, so travel time by train is more competitive with air travel.
The administration claims that high-speed rail would be faster, cheaper and easier than building more freeways or adding to an already overburdened aviation system — but has published no supporting analysis.
Potential benefits cited are job creation; decreased traffic congestion; reduced dependence on oil; increased rural development; and a potentially rich new market for rail equipment makers.
Proponents of high-speed rail have exaggerated its benefits. Much railroad equipment is imported. Transportation jobs can be created through expansion of highways, using private funding from tolls rather than taxpayer dollars. And additional high-speed rail is unlikely to ease traffic congestion, because traffic congestion occurs within cities, rather than outside them.
Evidence from Japan and Europe indicates that expansion of rail does not stop increases in road transportation and would not reduce dependence on foreign oil. In fact, the opposite has occurred. Since high-speed rail was built, rail has lost market share to cars.
Obstacles to high-speed rail, as well as funding, include the lengthy environmental review and approval process for construction; and technology requirements for separate rights of way for high-speed rail.
While comparable for station-to-station travel, rail loses the “high-speed” advantage over cars when travel is suburb-to-suburb.
Because steel wheels on steel rails cannot be quickly stopped, rail trains need miles of empty space in front of them. Expressways, on the other hand, can carry more than 2,000 cars, or 1,000 buses, per lane per hour, so have much bigger carrying capacities.
Many are comparing the development of a high-speed rail network with President Eisenhower’s initiative in pushing for the interstate highway system. But this is deficient because the highway system was created to serve an evolving, growing, congested transportation mode.
Passenger service on fixed rails, on the other hand, is an old and outmoded technology. In addition, the highways were designed to be paid for by users, by means of dedicated fuel taxes, but rail services have to be paid for by taxpayers.
If Obama is looking for budget cuts, he need look no further than high-speed rail.
Examiner Columnist Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
