M ass transit proponents point to high gas prices as another reason to green-light the troubled Dulles Rail project. But a new study shows that heavy rail is not the way to go to reduce energy costs. Using data from the U.S. Departments of Energy and Transportation, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Randal O’Toole found that heavy rail systems like Metro — which uses electric power generated by burning oil and coal — actually use more fuel per passenger than most automobiles and produce more greenhouse gases. Factors such as much heavier railcars that run practically empty most of the day, along with energy loss during transmission from generating sources, conspire to counteract rail’s “inherent efficiency advantage,” O’Toole said. In fact, the study determined, no rail transit system in the country is more energy-efficient per passenger mile than a hybrid Toyota Prius. “Electrically-powered rail lines are greenhouse friendly only in regions that use alternatives to fossil fuels to generate half or more of their electricity,” O’Toole found. And Metro is definitely not one of them.
Yet House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., recently joined forces with Dulles Rail backers determined to keep this misbegotten $5 billion-plus boondoggle on political life support no matter what. At a July 7 town hall meeting in Tysons Corner hosted by Rep. James “I’ll earmark the s**t out of it” Moran, D-Va., Oberstar blasted Federal Transit Administration officials for their reluctance to fund a project still listed as below average in cost effectiveness. Oberstar hysterically referred to FTA officials attempting to follow statutory requirements as “the KGB” and claimed that the Department of Transportation and the White House are “enemies of transit.”
What is Oberstar smoking? During the past eight years, the Bush administration spent $23.4 billion on 282 miles of new heavy and light rail transit projects, almost twice the $12.7 billion spent under Bill Clinton. Federal funding of Dulles Rail is still up in the air because it doesn’t measure up to other transit proposals the government could fund, not because of any hesitation at the White House or DOT. It’s clearly time to pull the plug on this sickly sacred cow.
