When Obama announced his “high-speed rail vision” — actually, a group of six disjointed rail networks — the Antiplanner predicted that the 17 states and hundreds of cities not on the network would begin lobbying to have those gaps filled in. The biggest gap is between Kansas City and California — outside of the Pacific Coast, none of the states in the West are on the map at all.
Planners to the rescue! The metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) for Reno, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City have agreed to put up $60,000 each to hire lobbyists to promote high-speed rail to their cities. They’ve asked the MPOs for Phoenix, Albuquerque, and Denver to join them in their “Western High Speed Rail Alliance.” Naturally, the planners in Phoenix support the idea, though I haven’t heard whether the “management committee” approved it during its recent meeting.
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The Antiplanner estimates that the Obama rail plan by itself would cost $90 billion. But if we fill in every gap demanded by cities and states, the cost could be several hundred billion. After all, the Interstate Highway System serves all 50 states, 330 metropolitan areas, and thousands of smaller cities and towns. The Obama rail plan serves only 33 states, about 100 metro areas, and virtually no smaller cities (because trains have to minimize stops to keep their average speeds high).
How wonderful to think that these noble MPOs will be using our own tax dollars to lobby to spend more of our taxes. And people say that government doesn’t work.
Places like Phoenix & Las Vegas, should first just try to have regular Amtrak service restored.
the highwayman [sic] asserted:
> Places like Phoenix & Las Vegas, should first just
> try to have regular Amtrak service restored.
Why?
Amtrak has a stop in Maricopa, Arizona which is reasonably
close to Phoenix.
And Amtrak can book patrons wanting to get to Las Vegas, Nevada
on a bus. Now I realize the bus does not run on steel rails,
which offends some, but it will get people where they need to
go.
Tough to convince people to take a train from Phoenix to Vegas when a round-trip plane ticket is, was, and probably will continue to be dirt cheap.
Of course they’re getting involved. Particularly when we’re paying for these lines out of general funds, not user fees.
The plan to allow locales to divert their gas taxes to transit and trains is much more reasonable than using general funds. Undoubtedly many local drivers will complain, but it at least should lead to states and cities only building transit where it makes at least some sense. Here, getting additional train appropriations is just free money for a state, not balanced out by less highway funds or anything. So the competition should be ridiculous.
When you consider how much more it costs per mile to build a fully grade-separated alternate 200mph set of lines, like CA, that also means that states have a huge incentive to inflate their costs as well in order to get the money.
Of course, we’ll have to see how Joe Biden and the FRA hand out the cash this fall. Will California’s belief that their plan deserves most of the funding, since it’s more expensive, be borne out? If so, expect a lot of copycat 200mph plans. Or will the FRA decide instead to fairly fully fund some of the more limited plans (Midwest, Southeast Richmond-Raleigh-Charlotte, etc.) for 110 mph trains instead, arguing that that’s more bang for the buck?
C. P. Zilliacus said: Amtrak has a stop in Maricopa, Arizona which is reasonably
close to Phoenix.
THWM: That’s still out of the way.
CPZ: Amtrak can book patrons wanting to get to Las Vegas, Nevada
on a bus.
THWM: The thing is to restore LA to SLC Amtrak service with LV along the way.